206 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF NEWFOUNDLAND 



(integra- 

 tion of 

 capital 

 being 

 appro- 

 priate to 

 both}. 



in the British Empire. They, too, depended on the capitalist, 

 who imported and lent what they required, and who bought 

 and exported what they produced. Sometimes he lent them 

 clothes, food, and tackle in return for one-half of their 

 catch, and sometimes he made fixed monthly or annual pay- 

 ments in kind for the whole of their catch. His loans were 

 never wages, but the price which he paid for half or all 

 of their fish, which thenceforth belonged to him. 1 It is true 

 that the boatmen often lent themselves out to one another, 

 but they were rarely if ever the hirelings of the merchant. 



The essence both of the ship-fishing and of the boat-fishing 

 system was that numerous independent producers of one 

 article, which was exported, wanted three articles, which 

 were imported. By taking the one exported article in un- 

 limited quantities, and by giving in return the three imported 

 articles in quantities only limited by the demand, the mer- 

 chant endowed the one article with general purchasing power, 

 and made it perform the functions of a currency. He acted 

 as bank, mint, and clearing-house, besides acting as money- 

 lender, export-agent, and import-agent. He combined six 

 or more functions of capital, and represented the integration 

 of capital. A disintegrating element set in when banks and 

 brokers were interposed between the producer and those to 

 whom he sold and from whom he bought. But banks pre- 

 suppose coin, and even to-day banks are recent, and solvent 

 banks still more recent; coin was a little less than 100,000 

 in 1872, and is a little more than 200,000 now, and the 

 cash nexus has only been imperfectly established. 



The peculiar relation between independent local fishermen, 



Newfound- shipowners, and worldwide merchants still permeates New- 

 land ?s sin r >-,> 



generis and foundland, and makes it ill-adapted to industries which arise 



unhang- spontaneously elsewhere. Cod-catching, like gold-digging, 

 unfits a nation for any pursuit other than the pursuit to which 



Therefore 



1 Captain Loch's Report, 

 vol. xxxv, p. 493, No. 327. 



1848, in Accounts and Papers, 1849, 



