BAIT-FISH— EXPANSION — AND CONFLICT 237 



marine in its character as Newfoundland. The sea has The sea 

 asserted its sway over Newfoundlanders; they are wedded with f^/^7y //^^ 

 the sea and ' their children's eyes change colour with the sea \ Newfound- 

 Cod^ seals, herrings, whales, and the clownish lobsters mould '^ ' 

 their destiny, and their pathway to reality lies through a life 

 dedicated to the sea. 



It is sometimes hard to distinguish causes from effects in 

 history, for effects mesmerize men's souls, which are the 

 media through which causes operate, so that effects react on 

 causes. But if anything in history can be considered a pure 

 unadulterated cause, the sea — with its bays and products — 

 is the first cause of the life, character, industry, government, 

 and history of Newfoundland. The chief places are bays like 

 Conception Bay, creeks like St. John's, or islets like Greens- 

 pond, Fogo, and Twillingate ; and its institutions were only 

 outward and visible signs of abiding geographical influences. 

 Old-fashioned theories about population, sea-power, and 

 economics, which were neither right nor wrong but only 

 suitable, co-operated with the conditions imposed by nature 

 until the nineteenth century. Then facts were too many for 

 the theorists, and settlers won their fishing victory over 

 visitors, and in the hour, perhaps because of their victory, 

 these old-fashioned theories became unsuitable and crumbled 

 in the dust. In the last century, without any help from 

 theories, the old geographical facts began once more to 

 produce the old historical effects, and Burin became a second 

 St. John's, St. George Bay a second Conception Bay, and 

 Burgeo a second Twillingate. It is true that in this last 

 century Treaties had a little to do, just as theories once had 

 much to do, with the process ; yet Treaties like theories were 

 only symbols and expressions of the idea men had of the 

 situation, and their idea was not invented but was a mere 

 reflection of geographical facts. Laws, Treaties, and theories 

 had not much more to do with the history of Newfoundland 

 than its froth has to do with the rapids of Great Rattling Brook. 



