VICISSITUDES IN THE LUMBER TEADE. 35 



imported In return ; while the profits of the merchants 

 erected towns and public buildings, improved harbours 

 and Internal communications, tempted foreign capital into 

 the province, and generally sustained and carried it for- 

 ward to Its actual condition. 



But, like other branches of Industry, the lumber trade 

 has always had Its periods of activity and depression. 

 When the demand was brisk and prices good, the trade 

 was pushed eagerly forward; lumberers went into the 

 woods by droves, and timber was shipped to England in 

 quantities which over-loaded the market. Prices in con- 

 sequence fell — those who w^ere obliged to realise were 

 compelled to sacrifice capital as well as profit ; and thus 

 mercantile crises, and many failures, periodically occurred 

 among the colonial merchants. It was the over-trading 

 of our own manufacturers in another form. The mer- 

 chants of St John and the other lumbering ports were 

 subject to these vicissitudes, not from any interference 

 of home regulations, but through excessive Individual 

 competition among themselves. Still, on the whole the 

 colonies gained, though many Individuals were constantly 

 suffering. And If home capital was lost to those who 

 embarked it, it was a gain to the colony, inasmuch as It 

 had been expended in paying for colonial labour, by 

 which, directly or indirectly, colonial land had been 

 cleared and prepared for the plough. 



But such an export trade in the large could only be 

 temporary. Land cleared of timber does not soon cover 

 itself again with a new growth of merchantable trees. 

 Every year carried the scene of the woodmen's labours 

 farther up the main rivers, and into more remote creeks 

 and tributaries, adding to the labour of procuring and to 

 the cost of the logs when brought to the place of ship- 

 ment. Hence, prices must rise at home, or profits must 

 decline in the colony, and the trade gradually lessen. 

 All these had already taken place to a certain extent, 



