doing so, but they might be required to report to any reasonably convenient Custom House or official; (5) In the case of bays, mentioned in the Treaty of 1818, three marine miles are to be measured from a straight line drawn across the body of water at the place where it ceases to bear the configuration and characteristics of a bay. At all other places the three marine miles are to be measured following the sinuosities of the coast. To return to the period now under consideration. It saw a bold attempt to deal with the Poor-law scandal. Relief to able-bodied persons was discontinued in 1868. A succession of good fishing seasons, and the development of the mining industry, lessened the difficulty of the step. Seven years later came a still more momentous proposal. "The period appears to have arrived," said Governor Hill, in his opening speech to the Legislature, "when a question which has for some time engaged public discussion, viz., the construction of a railway across the island to St. George's Bay, should receive a practical solution.... There is a well-founded expectation that the line of railway would attract to our shores the mail and passenger traffic of the Atlantic ... and thus would be secured those vast commercial advantages which our geographical position manifestly entitles us to command. As a preliminary to this object a proposition will be submitted to you for a thorough survey, to ascertain the most eligible line, and with a view to the further inquiry whether the colony does not possess within itself the means of inducing capitalists to undertake this great enterprise of progress." It is easy to forget, in speaking of Newfoundland until 1875, how very little was known of the interior. The Newfoundland with which we are concerned consisted in fact of a few towns on the coast, with a great and imperfectly explored interior behind them. Even down to the beginning of the twentieth century very little was known of much of the island. It is difficult to assign limits to the developments which are probable when a thorough system of internal communication shall have given free play to each latent industry. The first proposal was that a railway should be constructed from St. John's to St. George's Bay, but objections were made from England on the ground that the line would end on the French shore. Then came the proposal that it should run from St. John's to Hall's Bay, with branches to Brigus and Harbour Grace, covering in all a distance of about 340 miles. A joint committee of both Houses prepared a report, which became the basis of the Bill (1880). One sentence is worth quoting, because it states very clearly the difficulties which have played so large a part in the history of Newfoundland: