howed that good hunters made from a thousand to fifteen
hundred dollars in a season, besides the salmon and cod fishery. There
was, moreover, game for food, free firewood, water, homes, and no
taxation except indirect in duties on their goods.

These same conditions prevailed on the long, narrow slice of land
known as the "French shore" in northern Newfoundland. There the people
were more densely settled, the hinterland was small, and many
therefore could not go furring. Moreover, the polar current, entering
the mouth of the Straits of Belle Isle, makes this section of land
more liable to summer frosts, with a far worse climate than the
Labrador bays, and gardening is less remunerative. We puzzled our
brains for some way to add to our earning capacities, some cooperative
productive as well as distributive enterprise.

The poverty which I had witnessed in Canada Bay in North Newfoundland,
some sixty miles south of St. Anthony Hospital, had left me very keen
to do something for that district which might really offer a solution
of the problem. I had been told that there was plenty of timber to
justify running a mill in the bay; but that no sawmills paid in
Newfoundland. This was emphasized in St. John's by my friends who
still own the only venture out of the eleven which have operated in
that city that has been able to continue. They have succeeded by
adopting modern methods and erecting a factory for making furniture,
so as to supply finished articles direct to their customers. We knew
that in our case labour would be cheaper than ordinarily, for our
labour in winter had generally to go begging. It was mainly this fact
which finally induced us to make the attempt.

[Illustration: ST. ANTHONY]

Having talked the matter over with the people we secured from the
Government a special grant, as the venture, if it succeeded, would
relieve them of the necessity of having poor-relief bills. The whole
expense of the enterprise fell upon myself, for the Mission Board
considered it outside their sphere; and already we had built St.
Anthony Hospital in spite of the fact that they thought that we were
undertaking more than they would be able to handle, and had
discouraged it from the first.

The people had no money to start a mill, and the circumstances
prohibited my asking aid from outside, so it was with considerable
anxiety that we ordered a mill, as if it were a pound of chocolates,
and arranged with two young friends to c