60 CARIBOU SHOOTING IN NEWFOUNDLAND. 



we have mentioned. France protected her fishermen 

 by a bounty, which drove the Newfoundlanders out 

 of European ports; efforts to secure protection from 

 the home government failed, because it seemed to the 

 British capitalist that his interest lay in putting and 

 keeping the fishermen at the mercy of a few merchants 

 and there they are, under the "truck system," a 

 relic of ancient barbarism, just a hundred per cent, 

 worse than the "grub stake" of the miners in the 

 United States. The merchants, having skinned the 

 fishermen, are subjected to the same process at the 

 hands of their masters ; it seems they have been losing 

 money for ten years past, in the vain struggle with 

 French bounty-fed competition. Meanwhile the pro- 

 fessional politician comes to the front, fomenting strife 

 between factions while he gnaws all the marrow from 

 the bone of contention. Scarcity of currency added 

 to the difficulty. 



FROM BOOM TO CRASH. 



The fire that almost destroyed St. John's in 1892 

 put some five million dollars of insurance and relief 

 funds in circulation, and thus started a "boom" of 

 fictitious prosperity; but this was only superficial, 

 and the crisis, inevitable in such conditions, came in 

 the winter of '94-' 95. When the two prominent 



