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

PREFACEToC

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.

CONTENTSToC

THE STORY OF NEWFOUNDLAND

CHAPTER IToC

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