The Story of Newfoundland by Earl of Frederick Edwin Smith Birkenhead
page 9 of 165 (05%)
page 9 of 165 (05%)
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fresh discoveries will be made. In the meantime gold, lead, zinc,
silver, talc, antimony, and coal have also been worked at various places. A more particular account must be given of the great fish industry, on which Newfoundland so largely depends, and which forms about 80 per cent. of the total exports. For centuries a homely variant of Lord Rosebery's Egyptian epigram would have been substantially true: Newfoundland is the codfish and the codfish is Newfoundland. Many, indeed, are the uses to which this versatile fish may be put. Enormous quantities of dried cod are exported each year for the human larder, a hygienic but disagreeable oil is extracted from the liver to try the endurance of invalids; while the refuse of the carcase is in repute as a stimulating manure. The cod fisheries of Newfoundland are much larger than those of any other country in the world; and the average annual export has been equal to that of Canada and Norway put together. The predominance of the fishing industry, and its ubiquitous influence in the colony are vividly emphasised by Mr Rogers[2] in the following passage, though his first sentence involves an exaggerated restriction so far as modern conditions are concerned: "Newfoundlanders are men of one idea, and that idea is fish. Their lives are devoted to the sea and its produce, and their language mirrors their lives; thus the chief streets in their chief towns are named Water Street, guides are called pilots, and visits cruises. Conversely, land words have sea meanings, and a 'planter,' which meant in the eighteenth century a fishing settler as opposed to a fishing visitor, meant in the nineteenth century--when fishing visitors ceased to come from England--a shipowner or skipper. The very animals catch the infection, and dogs, cows, and bears eat fish. Fish manures the |
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