200 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF NEWFOUNDLAND 



were seal-going ships and Labrador fishing-ships; and the 

 latter included the former and were 200 or 300 in number, 1 

 sailing from Carbonear, 2 which was to Labrador what Dart- 

 mouth was to Newfoundland in the preceding centuries. In 

 the Forties 90-10 loo-ton sealing- vessels, which were built in 

 Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, were preferred ; 

 consequently the ships of the Forties, which exactly cor- 

 responded in size to the ocean-going West-English ships of 

 one or two centuries ago, were built primarily for the fishery 

 in Labrador. In 1863 steel-sheathed steam-sealers, which it 

 ( was impossible to build in Newfoundland, began to replace 

 the old sailing sealers, and the old-fashioned home-made 

 article seemed doomed, when a return to the Banks found 

 a new use for it and created a demand for more. The 

 shipping of Newfoundland now (1900) numbers 3,355 

 vessels, averaging 43 tons, and is largely employed on the 

 Banks and in Labrador. 



Labrador The 4o-ton ships which came and went, the boat-keepers 

 ^Newfound w ^ 10 remame ^ behind, and the absence of law and 

 laud what government in Labrador, recalled incidents in the history of 

 ^andwaf" the colon >' wm 'ch colonized it. During this period Labra- 

 once to the dor always had magistrates, but not always resident magis- 

 trates, 1 ' and, until 1863, Courts (1826-34), Customs officers 

 (i84i-5), 4 and fishery superintendents (1856-7) r> were more 

 rarely seen than bishops, and almost as rarely seen as 

 Governors; and even since 1863, although they had officials, 

 the people of Labrador never had representative government 

 in any shape or form, nor did they become part of any 

 electoral district, which seems to be the only administrative 

 unit of which Newfoundlanders make use. The inhabitants 



1 John MacGregor, British America, 1828, vol. i, p. 207. 



2 E. Gosse, Life of P. H. Gosse, 1890, pp. 47, 49. 



3 Ante, p. 154. 



4 Sir A. Bannermann, Dispatch, Aug. 10, 1863, in Accounts and 

 Papers, 1864, vol. xl, p. 541, No. 159; and Newfoundland Almanack 

 for 1845 (1844). 5 J. L. Prendergast. 



