ust all be imported, for none of our
native berries are naturally sweet, and we can grow no cultivated
fruits. The same fact applies to cotton and wool. Thus nearly all our
necessities of life have to be brought to us. Firewood, lumber, fish
and game, boots or clothing of skins, are all that we can provide for
ourselves. On the other hand, we must export our codfish, salmon,
trout, whales, oil, fur, and in fact practically all our products. An
exchange medium is therefore imperative; and we must have some gauge
like cash by which to measure, or else we shall lose on all
transactions; for all the prices of both exports and imports fluctuate
very rapidly, and besides this, we had then practically no way to find
out what prices were maintaining in our markets.

Government relief had failed to stop the evils of the barter system.
In the opinion of thinking men it only made matters worse. We were
therefore from every point of view encouraged to start the cooperative
plan which had proved so successful in England. I still believe that
the people are honest, and that the laziness of indolence, from the
stigma of which it is often impossible to clear them, is due to
despair and inability to work properly owing to imperfect nourishment.

Things went from bad to worse as the years went by. The fact of the
sealing steamers killing the young seals before they could swim
greatly impoverished the Labrador inshore seal fishery. The prices of
fish were so low that a man could scarcely catch enough to pay for his
summer expenses out of it.

With us the matter came to a head in a little fishing village called
Red Bay, on the north side of the Straits of Belle Isle. When we ran
in there on our last visit one fall, we found some of our good friends
packed up and waiting on their stages to see if we would remove them
from the coast. A meeting was called that night to consider the
problem, and it was decided that the people must try to be their own
merchants, accepting the risks and sharing the profits. The
fisherman's and trapper's life is a gamble, and naturally, therefore,
they like credit advances, for it makes the other man carry the risks.
We then and there decided, however, to venture a cooperative store,
hiring a schooner to bring our freight and carry our produce straight
to market; and if necessary eat grass for a year or so. Alas, after
a year's saving the seventeen families could raise only eighty-five
dollars among them for c