The Story of Newfoundland

The Story of Newfoundland

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Frederick Edwin Smith, Earl of Birkenhead
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Title: The Story of Newfoundland
Author: Frederick Edwin Smith, Earl of Birkenhead

Release Date: June 20, 2006 [eBook #18636]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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THE STORY OF NEWFOUNDLAND
by
THE RIGHT HON. THE LORD BIRKENHEAD Lord High
Chancellor of Great Britain Honorary Fellow of Wadham and Merton
Colleges, Oxford
New and Enlarged Edition

London Horace Marshall & Son Temple House And 125 Fleet Street,
E.C. 1920 Printed in Great Britain by Turnbull & Spears, Edinburgh

PREFACE
Twenty-two years ago the enterprise of Horace Marshall & Son
produced a series of small books known as "The Story of the Empire
Series." These volumes rendered a great service in bringing home to the
citizens of the Empire in a simple and intelligible form their

community of interest, and the romantic history of the development of
the British Empire.
I was asked more than twenty-one years ago to write the volume which
dealt with Newfoundland. I did so. The little book which was the result
has been for many years out of print. I have been asked by my friends
in Newfoundland and elsewhere to bring it up to date for the purpose of
a Second Edition. The publishers assented to this proposal, and this
volume is the result.
The book, of course, never pretended to be anything but a slight sketch.
An attempt has been made--while errors have been corrected and the
subject matter has been brought up to date--to maintain such character
as it ever possessed.
I shall be well rewarded for any trouble I have taken if it is recognized
by my friends in Newfoundland that the reproduction of this little book
places on record an admiration for, and an interest in, our oldest colony
which has endured for considerably more than twenty-one years.
BIRKENHEAD.
HOUSE OF LORDS, May 1920.

CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. THE LAND AND ITS PEOPLE 7
II. THE AGE OF DISCOVERY 22
III. EARLY HISTORY 45
IV. EARLY HISTORY (continued) 64
V. THE STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE 81

VI. THE ENGLISH COLONIAL SYSTEM AND ITS RESULTS 95
VII. SELF-GOVERNMENT 114
VIII. MODERN NEWFOUNDLAND 126
IX. THE REID CONTRACT--AND AFTER 143
X. THE FRENCH SHORE QUESTION 171
MAPS--
NEWFOUNDLAND AND LABRADOR 6
NEWFOUNDLAND IN RELATION TO WESTERN EUROPE 33
INDEX 188
[Illustration: NEWFOUNDLAND and LABRADOR]

THE STORY OF NEWFOUNDLAND
CHAPTER I
THE LAND AND ITS PEOPLE
The island of Newfoundland, which is the tenth largest in the world, is
about 1640 miles distant from Ireland, and of all the American coast is
the nearest point to the Old World. Its relative position in the northern
hemisphere may well be indicated by saying that the most northern
point at Belle Isle Strait is in the same latitude as that of Edinburgh,
whilst St. John's, near the southern extremity, lies in the same latitude
as that of Paris. Strategically it forms the key to British North America.
St. John's lies about half-way between Liverpool and New York, so that
it offers a haven of refuge for needy craft plying between England and
the American metropolis. The adjacent part of the coast is also the
landing-place for most of the Transatlantic cables: it was at St. John's,

too, that the first wireless ocean signals were received. From the
sentimental point of view Newfoundland is the oldest of the English
colonies, for our brave fishermen were familiar with its banks at a time
when Virginia and New England were given over to solitude and the
Redskin. Commercially it is the centre of the most bountiful fishing
industry in the world, and the great potential wealth of its mines is now
beyond question. On all these grounds