FISH AND FOREST

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 67, 22 March 1929, Page 6

FISH AND FOREST

NEWFOUNDLAND'S WEALTH

LAST YEAR'S TRADING

(From "Th« Post's Rtprnantatlvr) OTTAWA, 6th February. Newfoundland has just closed one of tho most successful years iv her industrial and economic history.

The fisheries, ,by which the groat mass of tho people obtain a livelihood, were moro profitable in 1928 than in 1927. Tho value of cod fishing is £2,600,000, as against £520,000 for all tho other fisheries—lobster, herring, salmon, seal, whale. Tho export of medicine oil was £120,000, and of industrial cod oil £110,000. Lobster fishing was permitted aftor a- close- season of three years, prescribed to givo these slow-breeding creatures an opportunity to reproduce, aftor a generation of intensive fishing. Brine lroezing, the new method of preserving salmon, promisos to supersede all other methods. The industry was worth £■95,000. Tho seal fishery, one- of tho world's most remarkable industries, in which tho hunters seek their prey among the ico floes of tho North Atlantic, was aided by acroplnnes used successfully for "spotting" tho herds. Baby machines, at first carried on the sealers and Launched from the deck, now take off from a land base on both west and oast coasts. Tho old-time sailer has been entirely replaced by steam and oil-driven craft. Sealing was worth £150,000. JPive- companies operate the whaling fleet. One whaling steamer, whoso ]>ropoller and rudder wero smashed by a. blow from tho tail of a harpooned whale, was blown ashoro by a gale and wrecked. The- whaling industry was worth £110,000.

Of the two paper mills, one, operated by Lord Kothermero at Grand Falls, has an output at £1,250,000, with a ■subsidiary plant with a third of that capacity. The second, roeently purchased by Americans from English interests, has an output valued at £1,600,000 annually. Iron, the chief mine industry, produced 1,548,000 tons, which is mainly exported to Germany, where- it is used by some of the largest stool makers, and to the British Empire Steel Corporation at Sydney, Nova Scotia.