ttle Harbour--which during the first year did sixty
thousand dollars' worth of business. This served to put a match to the
explosive wrath of those whose opposition hitherto had been that of
rats behind a wainscot. They secured from their friends a Government
commission appointed to inquire into the work of the Mission as "a
menace to honest trade." The leading petitioner had been the best of
helpers to the first venture. When the traders affected by it had
first boycotted the fish, he had sent his steamer and purchased it
from the company. Now the boot was on the other leg. The Commission
and even the lawyers have all told me that they were prejudiced
against the whole Mission by hearsay and misinterpretations, before
they even began their exhaustive inquiry. Their findings, however,
were a complete refutation of all charges, and the best advertisement
possible.

It would not be the time to say that the whole cooperative venture has
been an unqualified success; but the causes of failure in each case
have been perfectly obvious, and no fault of the system. Lack of
business ability has been the main trouble, and the lack of courage
and unity which everywhere characterizes mankind, but is perhaps more
emphasized on a coast where failure means starvation, and where the
cooperative spirit has been rendered very difficult to arouse owing to
mistrust born of religious sectarianism and denominational schools.
These all militate very strongly against that unity which alone can
enable labour to come to its own without productive ability.

There is one aspect for which we are particularly grateful. Politics,
at any rate, has not been permitted to intrude, and the stress laid on
the need of brotherliness, forbearance, and self-development--if ever
these producers are to reap the rewards of being their own
traders--has been very marked. Only thus can they share in the balance
of profit which makes the difference between plenty and poverty on
this isolated coast.

CHAPTER XIII

THE MILL AND THE FOX FARM

The argument for cooperation had been that life on the coast was not
worth living under the credit system. A short feast and a long famine
was the local epigram. If our profits could be maintained on the
coast, and spent on the coast, then the next-to-nature life had enough
to offer in character as well as in maintenance to attract a permanent
population, especially with the furring in winter. For the actual
figures s