1116 ADMINISTRATION AND LEGISLATION [PART Vv
In 1907 Mr. Fielding and Mr. Brodeur, on behalf of the
Canadian Government, negotiated a separate treaty with
France which received the approval of His Majesty’s Govern-
ment, and which, as supplemented by a Convention of 1909,
has been ratified by both Governments.
The principle regulating the conduct of such negotiations
has always been as in the cases cited above—that His
Majesty’s Minister in the foreign Court concerned should be
a plenipotentiary for the purpose of signing the treaty,
and that the whole negotiation should be carried on under
the supervision and with the approval of His Majesty’s
Government. The principles were laid down clearly in 1865,
and they were more fully expressed in a dispatch from Lord
Ripon 2 conveying the decision of the Imperial Government
with regard to the resolutions arrived at by the representa-
tives of the self-governing Colonies at the Ottawa Conference
of 1894, which laid down the following rules :—
Any agreement made must be an agreement betaveen Her
Majesty and the sovereign of a foreign state, and it was to
Her Majesty’s Government that the foreign state would apply
in case of any questions arising under the agreement. To
give the Colonies power of negotiating treaties for themselves
without reference to Her Majesty’s Government would be to
give them an international status as separate and sovereign
states, and would be equivalent to breaking up the Empire
into a number of independent states, a result injurious equally
to the Colonies and to the Mother Country, and one that
would be desired by neither party. The negotiations, there-
fore, between Her Majesty and the foreign sovereign must
be conducted by Her Majesty’s representative at the foreign
Court, who would keep Her Majesty’s Government informed
of the progress of the discussion, and seek instructions from
them as necessity arose. In order to give due help in the
negotiations, Her Majesty’s representative should, as a rule,
be assisted by a delegate, appointed by the Colonial Govern-
t Parl. Pap., C. 703; see also Lewis, George Brown, p. 227; Canada,
House of Commons Debates, 1887, p. 896 ; 1892, p. 1952; Ewart, The King-
dom Papers, pp. 68-72, ® Ibid., C. 7824; 7663, pp. 63 seq., 147 seq.
