NEWFOUNDLAND.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LV, Issue 158, 4 June 1935, Page 6

NEWFOUNDLAND.

A little more than a year ago, Newfoundland, the oldest British Colony, was compelled to seek relief from the responsibilities of self-government. The exigencies of the times had brought the Administration to a parlous plight, but it was an unfortunate fact that political corruption was to a very large extent also responsible for the unhappy financial position. A Royal Commission, appointed by the British, Canadian, and Newfoundland Governments, exposed this corruption, the financial and economic demoralisation which it had caused, and the state of destitution and apathy into which the bulk of the population had sunk. In these circumstances both Houses of the Legislature passed a resolution praying that the Constitution should be suspended until such time as the people could again administer the Dominion’s affairs. The British Government gave a sympathetic reception to the petition and a Commission was appointed. An interim report was issued at the beginning of this year, and it recorded steady, though necessarily slow, progress towards rehabilitation. Now, what is apparently a special report furnished at the request of the Dominions Secretary, has been issued as a White Paper, in which a substantial improvement is reported to have taken place in the Dominion. The Commission, in the matter of employment, was faced with the idleness of the fishingpopulation through the depression in the industry, apart from the usual off-season, and unemployment among the industrial workers who are largely confined to St. John’s. _ That it has rendered good service is shown by the fact that last year the fishermen earned more than a million- dollars above their income of the previous year. That money would be welcomed in homes that had known the direst poverty. For industrial workers, a policy of land settlement has been inaugurated with a measure of relief in the meantime. In the _ matter of finance the Commissioners have been aided by the debt conversion operation carried out under the guarantee of the British Government. They have restored the cuts previously made which reduced wages and salaries below a level of reasonable subsistence, and generally encouraged the people to look to a happier future, by utilisingin better manner their fisheries, forests, and agricultural land. To-day, according to the latest report, revenue has increased in spite of tariff reductions on articles in every day use and business and industrial activity are expanding. So desperate was the plight of Newfoundland when the Commissioners took over control that progress, satisfactory though it is, must necessarily be slow towards the state of economic independence that will enable the people to resume their own administration.