privileges which from the very nature of things are likely to be injurious to parties who are thereby debarred from some exercise of industry in which they would otherwise engage. Such rights are, therefore, certain at some time or other to be disputed, if there is any maintainable ground for contesting them; and for these reasons, when negotiators have intended to grant exclusive grants, it has been their invariable practice to convey such rights in direct, unqualified, and comprehensive terms, so as to prevent the possibility of future dispute or doubt. In the present case, however, such forms of expression are entirely wanting, and the claim put forward on the part of France is founded simply upon inference and upon an assumed interpretation of words." It was, in fact, as Lord Palmerston argued, a perfectly open contention that on the authorities no exclusive right was ever given to the French, but the demeanour of this country had been such as to render the position difficult and unconvincing. We are, however, upon much firmer ground when we come to close quarters with the French claims to rights of lobster fishing. The claim was first clearly advanced in 1888, that none but Frenchmen were entitled to catch lobsters and erect preserving factories upon the French shore. This at once elicited an incisive English remonstrance, in deference to which French diplomacy had recourse to the evasion that the factories were merely temporary. They were not, however, removed, and finally in 1889 further remonstrances by Lord Salisbury were met with the bold contention that these factories were comprehended within the language of the treaties. The English Government met this _volte face_ with a feeble proposal to resort to arbitration--a proposal which the islanders declined with equal propriety and spirit. The consequent position was vividly and faithfully stated by Sir Charles Dilke, in a passage which may be quoted in full: "Instead of protecting British fishermen in the prosecution of their lawful avocation, and resisting the new claim of the French, our Government, after failing to enforce the claim of the French, tried to go to arbitration upon it before a Court in which the best known personage was to have been M. de Martens, the hereditary librarian of the Russian Foreign Office, whose opinion on such points was hardly likely to be impartial. Luckily, the French added a condition, the enormity of which was such that the arbitration has never taken place, and it may be hoped now never will.