COLUMN A mixed bag of deterrents
We have always had a lot against us in doing business on this island. Spot-reading Gillian Cell’s 1969 book “English Enterprise in Newfoundland 1577-1660” I could make up my mind that the basis for our uncertainty and doubt can be detected well back in time.
Wars that devastated markets for fish, bitter competition among English businessmen and even ravenous pirates all took their toll on what we had going here.
It’s no trouble to read of one setback after another — down through the centuries — and then to wonder how anyone could have been tenacious enough to stay here.
“Disheartening” is the only word for all of this (and more): storms, a vindictive climate that would just as soon spoil fish as dry it and the danger of an idle workforce with no “anchor”. This and more conspired against any natural growth of stability. And this is to say nothing about officialdom (persuaded by gluttonous merchants) frowning upon any attempt at permanence.
There was religion-based confrontation and then there was disease: there was cholera in 1854 and 55; there was smallpox in 1863. And, of course, more devastating for business than all were the fires. We had three truly significant ones with smaller ones occupying the gaps between.
Perhaps all of these things, shaping up as a very bleak history, engendered in us a reluctance to venture. And perhaps as well, too many of us had but one commodity to sell: our physical labour.
A country of 330,000
These dreary thoughts came up from the east, blown toward us only last week by a BBC News feature, “How an Icelandic firm became a global food giant.” The company is “Marel” and it processes cod (cleaned, filleted and packaged) and flown out to market to be cooked and eaten “that same day.” Said the BBC article, “Marel was founded as a private company back in 1983 following a project at the University of Iceland to devise ways to help the country’s vital fisheries sector boost production and improve efficiency.”
“A global food giant!” And viewers/ listeners were reminded that Iceland is a little country of “only 335,000.” By comparison we seem to have lost our suitcases full of grit on the way over here.
Commissioner finds a flaw
Nearly 80 years ago, Commission of Government member Thomas Lodge wrote, “the Newfoundlander ... thinks in terms of commodities which have no utility in themselves but are only counters in the great money game. If one tells him that Newfoundland ought to produce sheep in order that the people may clothe themselves with woollen garments and eat mutton, his reaction instinctively is to ask how he is going to compete with New Zealand lamb on the English market. If one tells him that this is a problem which need only arise when everybody in Newfoundland has enough to eat and ample clothing, he looks at one with a pitying smile at one’s incapacity to understand that what really matters in modern life is money, and not the things for which money is exchanged.”
Lodge is describing our habit of throwing up roadblocks to ourselves.
I have mentioned before (and cannot forget) that some years ago I was talking to a rural Newfoundlander about the great success of a local homebuilder and my listener’s reaction was to smirk and say, “Yeah ... I wouldn’t mind having what he owes!” And here we should insert that old chestnut about identifying Newfoundland lobsters from any caught elsewhere: they are the ones which, on seeing their trapped contemporaries finally reach the rim of the bucket and begin to view freedom, pull them back down again with the others.
Then there is the following from a 1940 report by our Industrial Development Board: “If one looks over the variety displayed at a fish counter in a store abroad one cannot but be impressed with the absence of Newfoundland products ... the fact that there is not a single cannery or smokehouse of consequence in the country (Newfoundland) is in itself enough to reveal the lack of modern business incentive for expansion.”
Gillian Cell mentions pirates
A small part of her chapter “Government Intervention” studying the early 17th century when civil war was on the horizon in Great Britain she writes that our fishermen had enjoyed very mixed fortunes since 1630 ... not only did they have the worry of the dispute over the carrying (shipping) trade ... but there was piracy at sea and commercial uncertainty and growing tension at home. In more than one book we can see warnings that we had too many participants (merchants included) in a single industry. We had problems with piracy right down to modern times, did we not? Alfred Valdmanis and John C. Doyle leap to mind.
Also in Cell’s book, there is a sad little note in the conclusion and it concerns the “Newfoundland Company” which in the 17th century was formed by the government of Great Britain to manage the Newfoundland trade. “It never posed an effective threat to the freedom of the fishery” Cell writes. But it did have a visual effect on our fishermen. “They saw a group of men, far wealthier than they, backed by a royal charter, trying to invade the industry which they had built.” To the fishermen here it was seen as “yet another move to gobble up the Newfoundland trade.”
LAST WEEK’S COLUMN concerned our non-use of eels. A reader has added an important note on the subject: “Just read your column on the underutilized eel in NL. Perhaps the best reason for this is that they mostly occur in licensed rivers which can
only be fished in salmon season and then only with a fly. Renews River abounds with them. Jimmy Rodgers the warden, once caught me innocently trying to jig them and read me the riot act. I have accidentally caught eels in Biscay Bay, only in inner pond upstream of the river mouth. They will NOT take a fly! They come in from the sea and frolic together in a big “ball”. In the Mint Brook River fisherman have licenses to take them in traps. Restaurants in St. John’s will buy as many as you can provide at top price.
I understand there is a commercial fishery for them in Parsons Pond (or River of Ponds?)
Regards, Dave Sheppard
AND THIS BRIEF EMAIL champions eel better than I could!
Mr. Sparkes,
I thought I’d share this with you. My mother was German and whenever we’d go back to visit the one thing I’d look forward to would be smoked eel on some dark rye bread, buttered of course.
Oisin Mcmahon