

NEWFOUNDLAND. 



515 



this an adjournment of the Legislature took 

 place to allow the Government to mature meas- 

 ures for meeting the disasters caused by the 

 commercial crisis. 



The causes that brought on this commercial 

 crash are various. The immediate cause of the 

 bank and commercial failures was the suspen- 

 sion of 2 large English firms Messrs Prowse, 

 Hull & Morris, private bankers and commission 

 merchants, London, and Charles Bennett, of Bris- 

 tol. Through these 2 firms a large proportion 

 of the Newfoundland fishery products was dis- 

 posed of, and the merchants were accustomed to 

 draw on them for advances. They suspended 

 payment and declined to accept any more New- 

 foundland drafts. Large issues of' draft paper 

 were on their way to England when this news 

 was telegraphed. Necessarily, this paper would 

 go to protest, and the drawers in Newfoundland 

 had no means of restoring the money and the 

 banks had no specie to cover it. Hence an im- 

 mediate collapse. 



But the remote causes that led to the catas- 

 trophe had been maturing for years, some of 

 them for generations. The credit system on 

 which the fisheries have long been carried on is 

 thoroughly unsound, and in the long run could 

 only end in disaster. By this system the mer- 

 chants, at the beginning of each fishing season, 

 make large advances to the fishermen in food, 

 clothing, and fishing gear, and at the close the 

 catch of the season is handed over to the mer- 

 chant, and accounts are squared. The evil ef- 

 fects of the system are manifold. The merchants 

 have to charge high prices to cover bad debts 

 and the recurrence of unsuccessful fishing sea- 

 sons. The fishermen get into debt, and many of 

 them never see money. They are tempted to 

 indolence, extravagance, and carelessness in cur- 

 ing the fish, and at times to dishonesty. They 

 work on without hope of improvement or of 

 ever being free from debt. All this resulted, at 

 last, in the fisheries proving unremunerative. 

 The merchants lost heavily on their exports, 

 partly, perhaps, from being unable to compete 

 with the French (sustained by bounties) and the 

 Norwegians. Their capital began to melt away 

 during the last ten years. Then came the fatal 

 temptation, presented in loosely conducted local 

 banks to obtain loans, and the merchants them- 

 selves were directors and could help one another. 

 Thus overdrawn accounts, unsecured, were in- 

 troduced. Once within the vicious circle, it was 

 almost impossible to get out, and things must 

 go on. But the inevitable end arrived in a gen- 

 eral crash, a few bad fisheries and the collapse of 

 one or two foreign firms bringing down the whole 

 structure. 



The colony is now prostrate, and can only re- 

 cover itself by degrees and after many struggles 

 and much suffering. It is the severest blow that 

 has ever fallen on the colony. The capital in- 

 vested in the prosecution of the fisheries has 

 been seriously curtailed, and credit abroad is 

 shaken. The revenue is derived mainly from duties 

 on imports, and it is expected that during the 

 current year these will be reduced by half. There 

 is a public debt of $10,000,000 to $12,000,000, the 

 interest on which must be met. The public serv- 

 ices must be carried on, and if the revenue falls 

 short of these requirements only two alternatives 



present themselves to ask the mother country 

 to assume the liabilities and make Newfoundland 

 a Crown colony or to seek admission to the 

 Dominion of Canada. The former would be a 

 very humiliating position and not conducive to 

 the progress of the colony; so that it is probable 

 that confederation with Canada will be the out- 

 come of the present trouble. 



Fisheries. During the past three years the 

 seal fishery has not been remunerative. This is 

 partly owing to the fact that the price of seal 

 oil has seriously declined, cheaper oils having 

 taken its place in several branches of manufac- 

 turing industry, and the value of seal skins has 

 also fallen in the market. In 1892 the catch of 

 seals was fairly good, amounting to 348,624. In 



1893 it fell to 175.217 seals. In 1894 the united 

 catch of the steamers 22 in number did not 

 exceed 142,000 seals : but owing to the preva- 

 lence of strong easterly winds, which brought the 

 seals in upon the land, the people on shore took 

 120,000, making a total of 262,000 for 1894. 



The cod fishery of 1893, according to the latest 

 published customhouse returns, was considerably 

 under an average, the total export being 1.160,- 

 335 quintals. Of this quantity, 259,591 quintals 

 were exported from Labrador.' The returns for 



1894 are not yet published, but as the Labrador 

 fishery was a failure the total export will be less 

 than that of 1893. Unlike almost all other 

 articles of food, codfish had not declined in 

 value. Indeed, within the past quarter of a cen- 

 tury their value has advanced from 50 to 70 per 

 cent., and there is rarely any difficulty in find- 

 ing a good market for dried codfish, while the 

 use of "boneless codfish" is rapidly extending. 

 The cause of the decline in the Newfoundland 

 cod fisheries has been reckless and destructive 

 methods of prosecuting them, slovenly cure, 

 and a total want of protection and regulation. 

 Five years ago, in order to remedy these abuses 

 and guard the fisheries, a fisheries commission 

 was appointed and a skilled superintendent of 

 fisheries was engaged. In 1893 this became 

 a department of fisheries. Very important 

 improvements have been effected. A code of 

 rules and regulations is now enforced, and the 

 artificial propagation of codfish is prosecuted 

 on an extensive scale, in order to restock de- 

 pleted waters. In four years ending Dec. 31, 

 1893, 423,439,000 cod ova were hatched and the 

 young fry planted in the waters. During the 

 same period, 1,886,797,000 lobster ova were 

 hatched and planted in the various bays around 

 the island. The returns for 1894 are not yet 

 fully published, but they show a large increase 

 in the output of the cod and lobster hatch- 

 eries. 



The latest returns show that in 1893 the total 

 number of lobster traps employed was 87,720 ; 

 the number of fishermen employed being 1,448, 

 113 smackmen, 603 shore hands; and that they 

 caught 5,054,462 lobsters, from which number 

 26,214 cases (each case containing 48 one-pound 

 tins) were packed and exported. The value of 

 the export in 1893 was $265,522. 



The returns for 1893 show that the export of 

 herring in that year was 60.135 barrels of pic- 

 kled and 46,883 barrels of frozen herrings; total 

 value, $227,288. 



The report of salmon from Newfoundland and 



