A NEW FOUNDLAND DEAL.

Greymouth Evening Star, 26 August 1905, Page 1

A NEW FOUNDLAND DEAL.

if is only a few rears since Newfoundland shook ite'slf free of the Reiil contract, and now once mop.'

Ihc colony seems to have placed itself under the power of the private capitalist. In January the Government made a contract with the Anglo-New-foundland Development Company, promoted by the Harmsworths, as-

signing to them in perpetuity about y.fjQ square miles of country for the i urpnse of wood-pulp and paper

'.iianufact lire. Tho syndicate was thus put in perpetual possession of

about two million acres of forest, lake, river, and meadow, including, we are told, the best land, the largest, rivet and a great take, with full mineral

5". d quarry rights, ai, an annual rental if two dollars a square mile, with swamp and barren lands exempted. Fifty cents a thousand feel .are to be paid for trees converted into sawn

limber, and. the Government receives 5 per cent, of the net profits on

minerals. The syndicate, according to a correspondent, of the Speaker, is to be exempt from all municipal taxation, and to have its machinery imported duly free, while the colonists pay 30 per cent. The powers of the syndicate in its own territory are to be absolute. The syndicate may destroy trees at its pleasure without any obligation to rcafforest what has been called the Garden of Newfoundland, and there is nothing to prevent it from fencing in the caribou and reserving to itself all the sport of the colony. It can control the lives, trade, and employment of everyone living in this region, its only obligation being to provide sites for churches or schools. But its rights do not end with its own territory, for it may buy out any owner within seventy miles of its frontier. The Bill embodying the contrad was introduced in the House of Assembly on April 27, and passed its third reading on May 5. It went, straight; to the Legislative Council, although in the meantime- a great protest 'meeting was held, and has probably passed into law by this time. It cost "the colony nearly £200,000 to buy out Mr Reid', and the electors are naturally alarmed by Ibis second wholesale sacrifice of their natural rights and privileges.