den to put our material at Battle Harbour, we suggested moving
to this almost equally important point. But it fell under the same
category, and soon after the Government put a good light there also.
The fishermen, therefore, suggested that we should offer our
peripatetic, would-be lighthouse to the Government for some new place
each year.

We have not much now to complain of so far as the needs of our present
stage of evolution goes. We have wireless stations, quite a number of
lights, not a few landmarks, and a ten times better mail and transport
service than the much wealthier and more able Dominion of Canada could
and ought to give to her long shore from Quebec to the eastern
"Newfoundland" boundary on the Straits Labrador.

He is not a great legislator who only makes provision for certainties.
True, the West has shown such riches and capacity that it has paid
better to develop it first. But there is no excuse now whatever for
neglecting the East. The Dominion would have been well advised,
indeed, had she years ago built a railway to the east coast,
shortening the steamer communication with England to only two nights
at sea, and saving twenty-four hours for the mails between London and
Toronto. The war has shown how easily she could have afforded it. Most
ardently I had hoped that she might have turned some of her German
prisoner labour in so invaluable a direction.

Had the reindeer installation been handled by the Newfoundland
Government years ago as it should have been, Labrador would have
yielded to our boys in France a very material assistance in meat and
furs. Canada now could and should, if only in the interest of her
native population, begin on this problem as soon as peace is declared.

The fact that a thing possesses vitality is a guarantee that it will
grow if it can. Each new focus will expand, and caterpillar-like cast
off its old clothing for better. The first necessity for economy and
efficiency in our work has been to get our patients quickly to us or
to be able to get to them. Experience has shown us that while boats
entirely dependent on motors are cheapest, it is not always safe to do
open-sea work in such launches without a secondary and more reliable
means of progression. The stories of a doctor's work in these launches
would fill a volume by themselves. The first Northern Messenger, a
small "hot-head" boat, was replaced and sold to pay part of the cost
of Northern Messenger number two. This