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 the story of the colony is one with which every citizen of Greater Britain should be familiar. The historians of the island have been capable and in the main judicious, and to the works of Reeves, Bonnycastle, Pedley, Hatton, Harvey, and above all Chief Justice Prowse, and more recently to J.D. Rogers,[1] every writer on Newfoundland must owe much.