310 LABRADOR 



chants trading in Labrador assigned. Their creditors found 

 on their books as " assets" the debts of four hundred and 

 eleven souls, including women and children, people who 

 are among the very poorest; these people owed the firm 

 over $64,000. The value of these "assets" was returned 

 as "nil." 



Thus the system was wofully bad for both parties. 

 The fisherman, generally illiterate, was at the absolute 

 mercy of the merchant, and lived and died a slave and in 

 debt. The merchant was often ruined by bad debts. 

 For not only did some fisherman, imitating Ananias, only 

 turn in part of the catch and represent it as the whole, but 

 often he became hopeless and apathetic, and lost all stimu- 

 lus to do his best. Again, some men would temporarily 

 give to friends who had good credit the bulk of their catch, 

 in order to prevent its being absorbed in payment of their 

 own debt. The fish thus held back might be bartered or 

 sold to outside traders for goods such as tinned milk, sugar, 

 and such "luxuries' 7 which they could not hope to obtain 

 on credit from their own merchant. To prevent such 

 frauds, a kind of espionage had to be exerted, and the 

 catches of a suspected planter were watched as the season 

 progressed. Convicted planters were turned off from 

 their merchants and no one would take them on. Thus 

 resulted in the end the worst cases of poverty, cases, to 

 my mind, not caused by the bad fishery, but by the bad 

 system. 



Of late years, things have been improving, and a more 

 general cash basis has come into vogue, though still there 

 is room for improvement. 



The planter himself must have men to help him, and these 



