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 "mil: 
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” 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 
