Specimens have been submitted to experts in connection with the Colonial Office, and have been found, in some cases, superior to the Cape Breton coal. So much for the report of a man who understands his business, and has had better opportunities than any other living man of studying the question.
For myself, I may say that during twenty years of travel, in which I have been from the Gulf of Mexico to Ottawa, and from the Straight Shore of Avalon to the Muir Glacier of Alaska, I have studied every State which I have visited with a view to its attractions for British emigrants, and, before the passing of our present absurd immigration laws, have been instrumental in transferring many skilled operatives from the foul slums of Manchester and Salford to the healthy and pleasant factory villages of New England.
I need hardly say that Newfoundland is not the right place for such men; but, under a just and wise imperial government, it can be made a happy home for thousands of hardy Scotch and Irish peasants, who need not, in crossing the ocean, change their political allegiance. But England must first do her duty.
She must build her railroad from Port aux Basques along the French shore to Bonne Bay, or further north, so as to give the people a means of communication which shall not be impeded by the French treaty rights; and she must arrange her tariffs so as to defend her fishermen against the unjust discrimination of foreign bounties. As an American, I can have no interest in saying these things to Englishmen. If Major-general Dashwood is right, so much the better for us.
Our Whitneys are awakening new life amid the ruins of Louisbourg, although the Duke of York and those who followed him as proprietors of the Sydney coal fields could do so little with them; and so, if England cannot help Newfoundland, America can, and can serve herself well at the same time. Take the fishing for an instance. The French bounties do not hurt the Massachusetts fishermen, because we have a home market which the Frenchmen cannot touch, and seek only a foreign market for the very small quantity that our own people do not consume. And to share in this American home market alone would be more profitable to Newfoundland than all its connection with England can ever be.
J.F.