EFACE

Twenty-two years ago the enterprise of Horace Marshall & Son produced
a series of small books known as "The Story of the Empire Series."
These volumes rendered a great service in bringing home to the
citizens of the Empire in a simple and intelligible form their
community of interest, and the romantic history of the development of
the British Empire.

I was asked more than twenty-one years ago to write the volume which
dealt with Newfoundland. I did so. The little book which was the
result has been for many years out of print. I have been asked by my
friends in Newfoundland and elsewhere to bring it up to date for the
purpose of a Second Edition. The publishers assented to this proposal,
and this volume is the result.

The book, of course, never pretended to be anything but a slight
sketch. An attempt has been made--while errors have been corrected and
the subject matter has been brought up to date--to maintain such
character as it ever possessed.

I shall be well rewarded for any trouble I have taken if it is
recognized by my friends in Newfoundland that the reproduction of this
little book places on record an admiration for, and an interest in,
our oldest colony which has endured for considerably more than
twenty-one years.

BIRKENHEAD.

HOUSE OF LORDS,
_May_ 1920.

CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGE

I. THE LAND AND ITS PEOPLE 7

II. THE AGE OF DISCOVERY 22

III. EARLY HISTORY 45

IV. EARLY HISTORY (_continued_) 64

V. THE STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE 81

VI. THE ENGLISH COLONIAL SYSTEM AND ITS RESULTS 95

VII. SELF-GOVERNMENT 114

VIII. MODERN NEWFOUNDLAND 126

IX. THE REID CONTRACT--AND AFTER 143

X. THE FRENCH SHORE QUESTION 171

MAPS--

NEWFOUNDLAND AND LABRADOR 6

NEWFOUNDLAND IN RELATION TO WESTERN EUROPE 33

INDEX 188

[Illustration: NEWFOUNDLAND and LABRADOR]

THE STORY OF NEWFOUNDLAND

CHAPTER I

THE LAND AND ITS PEOPLE

The island of Newfoundland, which is the tenth largest