BOOKS OF THE DAY
Dictatorship in Newfoundland (Sir John Hope Simpson) 811 Indian Pilgrimage (F. Yeats-Brown) 812 Daughters of Queen Victoria (Christopher Hobhouse)... 813 Seventeenth Century Ireland (C. V. Wedgwood) ... 814 The Real Robinson Crusoe (John Hayward) 816 Spanish Postscripts (John Marks) ...
... 818
Pride and Passion (Catherine Carswell) ... ... 818 Finnegans Wake (Derek Verschoylc) ... 820 Fiction (Kate O'Brien) ... 822 Current Literature ... 824
DICTATORSHIP IN NEWFOUNDLAND
By SIR JOHN HOPE SIMPSON
IN 1933 the Newfoundland Parliament by a unanimous vote surrendered its function of government in return for financial assistance from the British Government and accepted govern- ment by a Commission appointed by the Secretary of State. The normal democratic form of self-government of a Dominion thus disappeared. The word " dictatorship " as a description of the new form of government is, however, a misnomer, as is evident from the argument of this book itself. One of the objections taken by the author to the Commission form of government whidi he discusses is based on the fact that the Commission is not an autocratic body, but is controlled closely by the Secretary of State, who is himself controlled in his turn by the British Parliament.
The course adopted in 1933 was inevitable. Had the British Government not intervened, had it refused to guarantee the debt of .the Dorrinion or to come to its assistance with grants- in-aid from the Imperial exchequer, default by Newfoundland would have followed, her credit would have disappeared, and chaos would have ensued, followed by starvation conditions over large areas of the island.
The economic conditions of Newfoundland are precarious and peculiar.. The Royal Commission whose recommendations led to the appointment of the Commission of Government stated in its report that " the codfishery has always been, and must continue to be, the mainstay of the island." This dictum provides the text for Mr. Lodge's book. He disputes the statement with vigour and with arguments which it is exceedingly hard to meet. Some light is thrown on the question by the recently published Annual Report of the Commission of Government for the year 1938. The number of codfishermen is about 30,000. The estimated net value of the fishery to the fishermen in 1938 was some 2,200,000 dollars. The average return to the fisherman was thus about 72 dollars. These results were obtained only with the help of material assistance from the Government. The Report states: " . . any slight improvement this year was really artificial and due to the action of Government in guaranteeing exporters against loss, which enabled exporters to pay fishermen higher prices than conditions in foreign markets really warranted." In addition, the Government allowed a so-called " rebate," but in fact a cash subsidy, of one dollar and fifty cents on each hogshead of salt used by the fisherman in salting his codfish. Even with these extraneous aids to prosperity, the codfishery returned to the fisherman less than Lis per head for the year's work. And it must be remembered that the majority of the fishermen are heads of families. Mr. Lodge estimates that at least fifty and perhaps sixty per cent. of the population are dependent on the fishery. The standard of life of this large section of the population is miserably low. The cod- fishery is indeed a very feeble "mainstay of the island."
The Report of the Commission of Government for 1938 offers no information about the numbers to whom it was necessary to afford relief during that year. At the time of the inquiry by the Royal Commission in 1933 a quarter of the whole population was in receipt of relief from the Government, and Mr. Lodge estimates that "the proportion of the fishing section needing such help must be somewhere between one- third and one-half." No statistics are anywhere available to support the estimate, but it is only too dear that an average income of less than Lrs is quite inadequate to support the life of the fisherman and his family for a year without help of some kind..
In the book the Commission of Government is criticised for its failure to concentrate on the only apparent remedy for the unsatisfactory economic position of the island. The first Dictatorship in Newfoundland. By Thomas Lodge. (Cassell. 7s. 6d.)
Commission at a very early date adopted a tentative scheme of land settlement. The story of Markland, told at length in Chapter XV of the book, is both striking and romantic. A start was made with ten families, whose men had been un- employed and on the dole for long periods. They were town- dwellers, and on a bleak April morning they left St. John's for the great venture, which, if successful, would turn them into smallholders in a very lovely valley some sixty miles from the city. As the months passed, the recovery of morale and the improvement in physical condition of themselves and their families was astounding. The settlement was managed by four philanthropic citizens of St. John's—all busy men, who gave up the whole of their leisure to the work of supervision. Mr. Lodge himself was the Commissioner in charge on behalf of the Government. There was criticism of the scheme from the start, based in part on ignorance of the details and the objects of the Markland system, and in part on the alleged luxury nature of the settlement. Other settlements were started, managed by young men who had been trained at Markland. Independent opinion of experts from Great Britain testified to the soundness of the lines adopted.
In 1937 the first British Commissioners were replaced and the original policy was modified by their successors. The principle that the most satisfactory method to provide for an increasing population was to develop the agricultural resources of the island seems to have been replaced by 'a hope that artificial stimuli to the codfishery would prove to be a more popular and in the end a more effective method. The opera- tions at Markland were materially curtailed, and for the past three years no attempt has been made to increase the number of settlements. Today the number of families settled is less than it was in 1937.
It it clear from the recent report of the Commission that inadequate progress has as yet been made in solving economic difficulties in Newfoundland. The success or failure of the system of Government by Commission must ultimately be judged by the improvement effected in the conditions of life of the inhabitants of Newfoundland. The difficulty is doubtless very great, but it cannot be claimed that progress has been adequate during the five years which have passed since the Commission first took charge. There are still sections where the population are entirely dependent on the dole, and are willing to remain so dependent. There are sections where no alternative means of livelihood can be found. The settlement at Lourdes, to which reference is made in the Report, consists of people who were moved from the rocks of the South coast. It has been a marked success. This fact encourages the belief that continuance of the policy of moving families from areas where no livelihood is obtainable to other areas where they can at least wrest a modest living from the soil should be followed with more energy.
It is seldom remembered that the total population of New- foundland does not exceed that of the city of Bradford. The numbers to be dealt with are comparatively small, and a well-thought-out plan would entail only a justifiable expense. The present hand-to-mouth policy of subsidies to an un- economic industry combined with widespread relief leads nowhere and will never solve the problem with which the Commission is faced. It is certainly true that the island now enjoys a Government whose personnel is efficient and that the scandals which attached to political life have disappeared. At the same time, justification for the replacement of demo- cratic by bureaucratic government can be established only if the bureaucrat is able to accomplish what was outside the capacity of the politician—to • raise the moral and economic standards of the island, and to think out and adopt a policy which promises to maintain the higher standards thus attained.
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