§ Order of the Day for receiving Report of Amendments, read.
LORD DENMANMy Lords, I could not hear the question put on the Second Reading, so I desire to make a few observations on the present occasion. I hope that the Government will proceed with this Bill. It has a few penalties which will have to be printed in red ink 355 when it is sent to another place. It is not fair to call it a Coercion Bill. I hope, with Lord Norton, that colonial susceptibilities will not injure colonial interests nor feed factious opposition if it arises in another place, nor opposition from the Front Opposition Bench in this House. If a Bill had not been brought in, it would have been said that the Government would not support colonial interests. The United States Government is anxious to mediate, and all the great Powers are striving to prevent and frustrate war.
§ THE PRIME MINISTER AND SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (The Marquess of SALISBURY)My Lords, I am sorry Lord Knutsford is not hero, but I have to move in his place some Amendments which are the result of the discussion in Standing Committee and which have had the assent of the noble and learned Lord opposite (Lord Herschell.)
§ Amendment moved on page 1, line 11, to omit all words after "full effect" to the end of Clause 1.
§ Agreed to.
§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYThe next is on page 2, to insert after Clause 1, a new clause in substitution for Clause 2 to this effect—
It shall and may be lawful for her Majesty, her heirs and successors, by advice of her or their Council, from time to time to give such orders and instructions to the Governor of Newfoundland or to any officer or officers on that station as she or they shall deem proper and necessary to enforce and carry out a temporary arrangement made with France for the fishery season of 1891, set out in the second schedule of this Act, and continuation of the same pending the arbitration agreed upon the second, third, fifth, sixth, and seventh articles of an agreement between Great Britain and France signed on the 11th day of March, 1891, and to give effect to the decision in such arbitration; and, in case it shall be necessary to that end, to give orders and instructions to the Governor or other officer or officers aforesaid to remove, or cause to be removed, any erections or other works whatever for the purpose of carrying on the catching and preparation of lobsters, erected by Her Majesty's subjects on that part of the coast of Newfoundland which lies between Cape St. John passing to the north and descending to the western coast of the said Is land and the place called Cape Raye, and also all ships, vessels, and boats belonging to her Majesty's subjects which shall be found within the limits aforesaid; and also, in case of refusal to depart from within the limits aforesaid, to compel any of her Majesty's subjects to depart from thence, any law, custom, or usage to the 356 contrary notwithstanding. The provisions of section 13 of the Act of 1824 contained in the first schedule of this Act are hereby enacted and applied to the orders and instructions in the section mentioned.I should say this new clause is precisely to the same effect as the provisions already printed. The object is to avoid the difficulty with regard to the lobster fishery which was pointed out by the noble Lord (the Earl of Dunraven.) There is no other object for it, and it is rather a more workmanlike provision than that contained in the Bill in its original shape.
THE EARL OF KIMBERLEYAs my noble and learned Friend, Lord Herschell, is not here, I merely wish to say that the clause has his entire approval.
§ Amendment agreed to.
§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYThen I have to move that the title of the Bill shall be altered by the addition of the words "and for other purposes" after the word "Newfoundland."
§ Amendment agreed to.
§ Bill to be read 3a on Monday next; and to be printed as amended. (No. 122.)