EARLY SETTLEMENT

Now within three years after John Cabot achieved the remarkable feat of sailing right through Newfoundland so he could claim Cape Breton as his landfall, much of the east coast of this island had been explored and European fishermen were sheltering in its harbours. Bonavista, Conception, Catalina, Cape Freels, Baccalieu, Cape Spear, Fermeuse and Cape Race- I am giving the modern version of their names- had been pin-pointed on the map of Newfoundland by the Portuguese.

Less than a 100 years later, although still outnumbered by the French, Spaniards, Basques and Portuguese, Sir Humphrey Gilbert found that the English were commonly lords of the harbours in which they fished. There is reason to assume that even at this early date some of them had begun the custom of wintering in the island to protect their fishing establishments from the native Indians and the first ships to arrive from Europe in the spring.

In 1609 the first colony was established by private venturers under royal charter and within the next 20 years other plantations were organized between Trepassey and Bonavista. But the ship fishermen, the captains and sponsoring merchants of the English west country, wanted Newfoundland as a fishing preserve. They persuaded Charles I to impose restrictions on settlement and to give all legal authority to the Fishing Admirals. These were to be the first captains to arrive in a Newfoundland harbour each spring. many of them were rough, tough, unlettered men, good fishermen and good navigators, but hardly the best dispensers of the King's justice. They bullied the residents. They burned the woods to increase their difficulties. But in spite of these fishing admirals and the restrictions on settlement, a resident populations set down its roots.

TRADE WITH NEW ENGLAND

They were helped by the development from 1650 onwards of trade with the New Englanders. They came to Newfoundland with their ships laden with sugar, molasses, salt meats, flour, woolens and rum. These they exchanged with the settlers for salt codfish and fish oil.

By 1662, after the passage of the navigation acts which forbade trade between the colonies with each other or with foreign countries. Newfoundland became the centre of a thriving contraband trade. I recall a case some years ago in which a local magistrate was sentencing a man consisted of smuggling liquor from St. Pierre. With tears in his eyes, he said to the unfortunate prisoner: "My good man, I'm very sorry to have to inflict this severe penalty upon you. Always remember, there's no sin in smuggling unless you're caught."

Britain set out to confirm the sin by catching the smugglers. She sent naval vessels to Newfoundland ostensibly to convoy the fishing fleet back to England but actually to suppress smuggling. This, by the way, was not restricted to the exchange of French brandy for New England tobacco or West Indian sugar. It included men. Many proud descendants of early New England colonists might be shocked to learn that their first American ancestors were smuggled out of the port of St. John's in empty rum casks.

OPPRESSION OF SETTLERS

Through all this period the West Countrymen continued their agitation against settlement in Newfoundland. They persuaded the British Government to rule that all inhabitants must leave the island and this gave such license to the fishing admirals that they began the systematic destruction of the property of the inhabitants. But a new element was introduced in the late seventeenth century. The French under license from Charles II, sailed into Placentia, took possession and fortified it. Thence forward the English settlements were subjected to ferocious raids by the French troops and their Indian allies. Time and again St. John's and all the settlements in Avalon were destroyed. But no sooner had the French departed than the inhabitants stole out of their hiding places in the woods to rebuild their plantations. One consequence ensued. the laws against settlement remained but, on the advice of the convoy captains, the settlers were left alone as a check against the French.

FRENCH TREATY RIGHTS

Charles the Second let the French in. Queen anne's ministers by the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, made them a factor in retarding the development of newfoundland for nearly 200 years. For by that treaty,the French were given concurrent fishing rights on most of the northeast coast and the entire west coast of the island. This was to be the source of continuous conflict. Meanwhile the home government opposition to settlement remained inflexible.

To the new naval governor coming out to Newfoundland for the summer, Lord North declared that what the settlers wanted roasted they were to get raw and what they preferred raw they were to be given roasted. And in 1789, the naval commander in Newfoundland ordered to be destroyed every building which contained a chimney. This was more than thirty years after Nova Scotia had been granted a representative assembly and had become a colony in which immigration was assisted, farming was encouraged, roads were built and a settled society established.

LEGAL RIGHTS DENIED

In Newfoundland there were settlers but they were all denied all legal rights. they had no law. the naval governors sailed home in the autumn and left the wretched inhabitants to fare as best they could without civil rights of any kind. But they were stout people- these settlers- they had to be. twice they were recruited to save Canada. They were recruited just in time to turn back Benedict Arnold from the walls of Quebec. In the war of 1812 they were again in time to save Toronto from conquest from the Americans. However, there is one point I want to make at this stage because it is important to an understanding of our present problems. I have said Newfoundland is different. One of the major differences is to be found in one extraordinary fact. The island of Newfoundland has a land mass of 42,000 square miles but the whole of its vast interior is little known and virtually uninhabited. The population is dispersed along a perimeter of 6,000 miles. The reasons are plain in what I have said. The circumstances under which they existed confined the settlers to the coast and caused them to scatter to their thousand harbours where they might remain unmolested. There they remained without benefit of clergy or education or law, existing as best they could by their own resources, with no authority to aid them or provide them with the minimum of civil protection.

SELF GOVERNMENT GRANTED

In 1811, the persistence of the settlers forced the hand of the British Government. The right to hold property was confirmed. The land monopolized in St. John's by the West Country fishermen was allowed to be sold. Newfoundland had won at last the right to live in their own country. But more than 20 years passed before a representative assembly was sanctioned. And not until 1855 was self-government granted.

The first responsible government was hardly in office before its leaders were compelled to go to England to protest against new concessions to the French who occupied half the coast of the island. Not until 1880 was Newfoundland allowed to place a magistrate or station a policeman on its own west coast. the northeast coast was almost completely neglected. in summer the only communication between the capital and the outports was by sea. From December to My, the northwest and northeast coasts were completely isolated by the ice blockade. People got along as best they could and developed in the process that sturdy independence which was long their proudest boast. A few doctors travelled long stretches of coast each year by boat, dog-team and often on foot, to minister as best they could to their districts. Educational opportunities were limited. Life was primitive.

CONFEDERATION REJECTED

The government in St. John's with an income of barely a million dollars a years, supported the trappings of sovereignty as best they could. They were constantly embattled with the British Government over French encroachments, they had to cope with a single industry economy which left thousands idle and impoverished each winter. Yet they had the courage as far back as 1875 to plan a railway that would open up the country. They made a reciprocal trade treaty with the United States in 1890 but this was disallowed by the Imperial Government at the request of Canada. They faced a crisis in 1892 when St. John's was destroyed by fire. They met a greater crisis in 1894 when two commercial banks failed and the country was left without a currency. Yet even then, unable to meet the interest on the debt, with the very existence of the colony threatened, they could not accept confederation on the terms that were the best Canada would then offer. Canada would only take over that part of Newfoundland's funded debt which was computed by applying the prevailing per capita Dominion debt about $50.00 to the population of Newfoundland at that time. That left about five millions to be carried by Newfoundland, an impossible burden in the circumstance of the period. It is an ironical fact that if the same terms had been offered to Newfoundland ten years ago (1949), the Dominion would have had to pay us annually, as a special subsidy, the interest on $300 million.

WAR BROUGHT PROSPERITY

Somehow or other, the immediate difficulties were overcome. Sixty years (1899) ago the first train crossed the island. Six years later the french shore problem was settled. In 1908 the first newsprint mill was established. But revenues remained small and services were restricted. Just the same, the population continued to increase in spite of a steady stream of emigration to the mainland.

The first world war brought untold prosperity, based chiefly on rising demand, and prices for salt codfish. But this upturn was founded on a pyramiding of credit. In 1920 there was virtually a total collapse. The opening of a new paper mill in 1926 helped. At the same time the first attempt was made to build motorable roads. New mines brought further diversification of the economy. But all these things happened on the eve of universal disaster. By 1932 Newfoundland had exhausted her credit. One-third of the population was getting winter relief at the rate of six cents a person per day in food orders. And even in the payment of its relief bills the government was a year behind. A Royal Commission recommended a rest from party politics and a despondent people accepted the proposal and surrendered completely the democratic privileges for which there had been so fierce a struggle 80 years before. The Royal Commission had put the blame for the disaster on political corruption. It was wrong. The weakness of economy and the strains and stresses of meeting the needs of a people scattered in 1,300 communities along a 6,000 mile perimeter were the real reasons.

COMMISSION OF GOVERNMENT

When the Commission of Government took office less than twenty-five years ago (1934), Newfoundland had virtually no public services. Health and welfare were primitive organizations supervised by the Division of Public Charities. Education was better than might have been expected for the money that could be allocated for its support. There was not a mile of paved road in the island. Even in St. John's, everyone put his car away for the winter.

To the credit of the Commission of Government, it did a great deal to establish organized services. its expenditures were limited by the careful bureaucrats in London. It did, however, establish the nucleus of a good public health service. it built cottage hospitals at strategic points. It created extended nursing services. it put a new wing on the General Hospital in St. John's although it took five years to complete. It endeavoured to organize welfare but kept the dole rate at six cents a day and the old age pension available only to those who had reached 70 and could pass a means test, at $50 a year. It played about with the economy. First it tried the methods that its predecessors had assayed. It supplied for the fishery. It subsidized the building of schooners. It ultimately guaranteed a minimum price of fish. And it put some millions of dollars into land colonies. But while it brought order to the civil administration and laid the foundation for improved and organized public service, it had achieved little else when war came.

ECONOMIC REVOLUTION

War brought economic and social revolution. While the demand for all Newfoundland's basic products increased, the establishment of the American bases was a prime factor in creating change. The people moved from credit to a cash economy. There was full employment.

Bonavista

Even fishermen knew what they would receive for their catch before the fish was landed. In the process the old basis of a subsistence economy was forgotten and people who grew their own food found it more profitable to buy it than grow it. When war ended, Newfoundland was enjoying the highest level of prosperity it had ever known. But its economic basis was still uncertain. the newsprint industry was prosperous and seemed to have its future underwritten for many years. European steelmakers had suddenly discovered they could make economic use of Bell Island's iron ore. the fresh fish industry had raised production from three million pounds in 1939 to 40 million in 1945. And the american bases had become a vital factor in the economy. By Newfoundland's standards, life seemed good when the decision was made to enter the Canadian federation. A realization had grown that Newfoundland was too small to stand alone as an independent dominion. The Canadian social security system was attractive. There was a promise of all the technical and financial resources of a great nation being applied to the exploration and development of our unknown resources in Labrador and Newfoundland.

CONFEDERATION

Well, we became a Canadian province. All seemed well. Family Allowances and old age pensions were an unquestionable blessing. But where did we stand economically? After all, as Mr. Smallwood was to say later these social security benefits were just a safeguard and a supplement. the real hope of the people lay in a diversified and stable economy.

At any rate, the first autumn of confederation brought us to a shocked realization of our continued vulnerability. Britain devalued sterling. Our export industries were hit with staggering force. Logging suffered particularly. this was our great source of marginal employment. It was a fall operation. there was a large turnover of employment. Fishermen and others went into a logging camp for a few weeks. When they had earned what they needed, they made room for others to take their place. With logging greatly curtailed, with fish hard to sell, things looked pretty black and a scheme of work relief had to be prepared to tide us over the first winter of union. It was this situation that sparked the vigorous drive to diversify the economy through government financing of secondary industries. they took a good deal of our pre-union surplus. the need to build roads, hospitals and schools, took the rest.

SUBSTANTIAL SERVICES

I am not going to labour the question of services, important though it is in relation to our economic situation. I do, however, want to make this point. Before 1934, as I have already said, our public services were primitive. The Commission of Government introduced many improvements but the deficiencies of centuries could not be made good in a few years. We had, however, been content because we had no standard of comparison except our own. Then, suddenly we became part of a great nation with a highly developed system of public services. We suddenly realized the tragic nature of our deficiencies. And we also saw the tremendous problem, physical and financial, of providing efficient road , hospital and educational services to a scattered population spread along a perimeter of 6,000 miles. Something had to be done. We did the best we could with what we had. I shall have a little more to say about this in a moment or so.

The new upswing that followed the Korean war rescued us from the troubles that had come upon us in the winter of 1949-50. We found no help anywhere and had to strive for essential development as best we could. We tried financing secondary industries with mixed success. We had no aero-magnetometer survey of our mineralized areas. We surveyed some of our power resources. The greatest thing in this period was the enlistment of the great House of Rothschild to put together the detailed exploration of unknown Newfoundland and Labrador. This is going to be a tremendous force in the future. It was the product of inspiration and hard selling and future generations will have cause to be grateful for it.

Now, I know time is limited and I feel sure you will realize that to attempt to present even a profile of the Newfoundland story in a few minutes I have is difficult. Much must is omitted. Much must be skimped. What remains to be told must be said very briefly under three heads- the present state of our economy, the revision of the Terms of Union, and our relations with Ottawa with consideration for the part that APEC may be able to play in that particular field.

PRESENT ECONOMY

Where does Newfoundland stand today (1958)? Economically, the position is difficult. Even if there were not a mild recession in newsprint and logging we would still have to face up to the fact that the introduction of the chain-saw has revolutionized the logging industry. Once it took 17,000 men to complete our pulpwood cut. Today is possible for half that number to cut the wood we want in much shorter time. Mechanization has deprived many thousands of their marginal earnings in the fall. The salt cod fishery is still uncertain and unstable. Once 40,000 men drew their living from it. Today, save in exceptional circumstance, it cannot support 12,000. Our mining industry is doing fairly well. The American bases remain a large but uncertain support to the economy. Basic agriculture has suffered from our inability to produce as cheaply as we can buy root crops from the Maritimes. But population has been increasing at a rapid rate. We have added 100,000 people since Confederation- the equivalent of the whole population of P.E.I. What can we do to hold that population? That is our big problem. It is aggravated by the fact that our population is the increase of the surplus of births over deaths. We have no adult immigration. Every year our potential working force rises by from three to four thousand and our basic resources cannot absorb so many. Now things are not as discouraging as these bold facts may sound.

Far from it. There are many bright prospects but they will take time to develop. The Hamilton Falls (Renamed Churchill Falls) in Labrador will some day send out its six million horsepower t o turn the wheels of industries in cities hundreds of miles away. There is the prospect of a great hydro-electric development on the south coast of Newfoundland, perhaps a new paper mill, and certainly new mines. But we must wait patiently for their materialization.

TERMS OF UNION

And now let me refer to the revision of the Terms of Union. Our position in this respect, I fear, is little understood. I shall try to put it to you as simply as possible. When the confederation agreement was made, it was very plain that the financial consequences to Newfoundland becoming a province of Canada was unpredictable. A saving clause was provided. This said that eight years after union a federal Royal Commission would be appointed, its task would be to review the financial position of the province and recommend the additional assistance needed to allow Newfoundland to continue-and I want to stress that the word continue- its public services at the highest levels and standards reached at the time of review. A Newfoundland commission spent four years in an exhaustive study of our problems. It found that merely to bring up our social capital to the minimum tolerable level would require a capital outlay of not less than one hundred million dollars (in 1958 dollars). This did not include the completion of our share of the Trans-Canada Highway. That would cost another forty millions.

A federal Royal Commission was in due course appointed. Its unimaginative solution was a fixed annual grant of eight millions a year. That would be one million more a year than we received in the first three years of union as a special transitional grant. No provision was made for continuing the present standards for an increasing population. The recommendation was not even stipulated in constant dollars. There was no protection against inflation. And we have been denied an interim payment by Ottawa, although the recommendation covered the fiscal years 1957-58 and 1958-59. In fact, we were told that we should be able to get along very well with our share of the Atlantic adjustment grant. But this grant can be used by the Maritime Provinces to IMPROVE their present superior services. We must use ours to maintain inadequately our sadly substandard services. Merely to maintain our existing annual commitments to the public services and replace exhausted, social capital costs us today about $70 millions. That leaves us with an enormous deficit and compels us to draw upon credit reserves to keep afloat. We cannot raise more by provincial taxes. We have already imposed the highest level of taxation our people can bear without suffering a severe reduction in their living standards. Our financial future, the future of our present inadequate services, our ability to maintain them at substandard levels now rests with the Federal Government.

CONTRIBUTION TO CANADA

And now I come to our relations with Ottawa and also with APEC. I said at the beginning than the Ottawa concept of uniformity. But there is one thing that is more irritating. If you want to make a Newfoundlander foam at the mouth, tell him how glad you are that Canada was able to help put us on our feet. Nobody wants to know what Canada gained from Union with Newfoundland. Nobody will believe the truth.

I wish I had more time to develop this theme but I have already trespassed far too long on this morning's programme. I can say this and MacKenzie King is my supporting evidence - Canada could not have become a great nation so long as Newfoundland and Labrador remained outside the Dominion and were potential fields of American influence. You cannot set a price on this but no amount would have been too high a price to bring Newfoundland and Labrador into confederation. At the same time, Canada gained sovereignty over a billion dollars worth of defense expenditure made by the Americans on their bases. The Americans still carry the burden of cost for Newfoundland defense. We have made Canada one of the great iron- producing countries of the world. We have added immensely to her industrial expansion. You may not believe this but it is true- that if Newfoundland were an export market, we would rank third after Britain and America as a customer. We are moreover a captive market. Before union our purchases from Canada were about fifty million a year. Today they are nearly five times that amount. And since was are unique in the respect that we produce virtually nothing of what we consume, almost ninety cents of every additional dollar earned by Newfoundlanders goes to pay for goods and services provided by the Canadian mainland. We have even lost our local agricultural industry to the Maritimes. When our population was half what it is today- when we had 220,000 instead of 400,000 people-- we produced 500,000 barrels of potatoes a year. Today we don't grow half that quantity. One would think in those circumstances that it would be an act of enlightened self-interest on the part of the Government of Canada to play a major part in the promotion of Newfoundland's development.

OTTAWA'S INDIFFERENCE

One thing that should be done is to provide more help with basic communications. Railways were provided for all provinces at federal cost. Here the capital cost of providing one was avoided. But Newfoundland has the intolerable burden in the building of the Trans-Canada Highway. We have to complete a greater mileage than the total yet to be finished by all the other provinces combined, with the exception of Ontario. This is an inequitable burden, even if we have to pay only half the cost. But frankly, I think all the Atlantic provinces are taken too much for granted. Ottawa has shown little real interest in Newfoundland since union. In nine years, no cabinet minister has come except at election time to find out what kind of a province this is, to study its problems, to offer sympathetic assistance. I went last November to the Dominion- Provincial Conference. The only mention of a national concept came from Mr. Smallwood. There seemed to me to be a complete indifference to the national ideal and sentiment of one for all and all for one.

Now it may be that I'm talking like an old unreconstructed anti- confederate. Believe me, I don't want to sound like that. But it takes more than an act of union to make a good Canadian out of any Newfoundlander. No federal leaders have come here to tell us about Canada's greatness, about its sense of unity, about its aspirations, about its virtues. And I am not conscious of any act in the past nine years that convince me that a sense of real nationhood exists in Ottawa to embrace the provinces, their problems, their needs,and what they can contribute to national unity and progress. That must be changed. Perhaps we in the Atlantic Provinces can become and effective force that will bring all Canada a new sense of nationalism and a new philosophy for confederation.

NEW IDEALS NEEDED

Here in Newfoundland we want only practical aid to make us a better market for Canadian produce and to give us a tolerable minimum level of services. We want in a Canadian Bill of Rights the assurance that a decent minimum level of services and a minimum equality of opportunity will be the birthright of every Canadian no matter where he may live. We ask for an intelligent interest in our affairs and constructive aid. We don't want handouts. We don't want charity. We want to belong.

NEW AIM OF APEC

We in APEC have so much in the way of common interests that the areas in which our economics conflict are relatively unimportant. There is room for us to have a better and more intimate understanding of our individual and joint problems. But if we go about things in the right spirit, if we truly decide to work together as a team, if we fashion for ourselves a philosophy of Canadian nationhood that will commend itself to all Canadians of good will then, I honestly and sincerely believe that APEC can make a contribution out of all proportion to the total size and importance of the provinces we represent and, what is more, bring about our own progressive development in the process. That, in my opinion, should be the overriding aim of the Atlantic Provinces. That is an idea that I should like to see developed in this conference in Newfoundland. It is an idea that I should like to blow like to see blow like a fresh clean wind from the Atlantic right across Canada to sweep away complacency and smugness and awaken all Canadians to a new sense of national responsibility and unity. That is an idea that I should like to see universally accepted in canada, an idea that will bind us closer together all the way from St. John's to vancouver: an idea that will inspire us to work in closer understanding and with more vigorous purpose to build a mightier nation in which the strength of the parts will constitute the unchallengeable and indubitable greatness of the whole.

¹ Perlin, A.B., (1959) The Newfoundland Story, Anglo-Newfoundland Development Company Limited, Grand Falls, pp. 9-29.