A great scene was enacted in the Lords on Thursday,
the Peers assembling in large numbers to hear Sir W. Whiteway, Premier of Newfoundland, plead at the Bar of the House in favour of his Colony. He was more moderate than was expected, offering, on behalf of the Newfoundland Parliament, to pass the legislation necessary to make the Treaty of Utrecht work for a time, if the Government withdraw e its " coercive " Bill, and if all the questions connected with fishery rights are submitted to arbitration. The Government have no means of giving the latter promise, as the French do not want to diminish but to increase English embarrassments until Egypt is evacuated ; but the former offer, if sincere, might be accepted. Nobody wants to brandish the ulti- mate sovereignty of Parliament in the face of Colonists, though the weapon is essential to the safety of the Empire, and cannot be abandoned. If Newfoundland will only wait, it will get what it wants, Great Britain making some cession to France in consideration of its ancient rights ; but mere hectoring will secure nothing. The Colony must recognise that, though its grievance is real, it is one based on public law, and that public law cannot be roughly set aside at the bidding of what is really the tip of the peninsula of Labrador.
