36

LAVISH CUTTING OF TIMBER.

when the further increase of home prices was rendered almost impossible by the equalisation of the timber duties. In this alteration of our British laws, a large number of those engaged in the timber trade have been inclined to see the sole cause of the comparatively unprosperous circumstances in which they have recently been placed.

In so far as I have myself been able to ascertain the facts of the case, I think, with many patriotic colonists, that the welfare of these North American provinces would on the whole, and in the long run, have been promoted by a less lavish cutting and exportation of the noble ship-timber which their woods formerly contained, and which has already become so scarce and dear. Home bounties have tempted them to cut down within a few years, and sell at a comparatively low price, what might for many years have afforded a handsome annual revenue, as well as an inexhaustible supply of material for the once flourishing colonial dockyard.

At the same time, it is useless to lament over past mismanagement. It is easier to discern evils and their causes, after they have occurred, than to prevent even their recurrence. The cream of the timber trade being fairly skimmed off, the question, on my arrival in the colony, had assumed the matter-of-fact form"How are we colonists in future to make our butter?"

It was an acknowledged evil of the lumber trade, that, so long as it was the leading industry of the province of New Brunswick, it overshadowed and lowered the social condition of every other. The lumberer, fond as the Indian of the free air and untrammelled life of the woods, receiving high wages, living on the finest flour, and enjoying long seasons of holiday, looked down upon the slavish agricultural drudge who toiled the year long on his few acres of land, with little beyond his comfortable maintenance to show as the fruit of his yearly labour. The young and adventurous among the province-born

CONDITION OF THE LUMBERERS.

37

men were tempted into what was considered a higher and more manly, as well as a more remunerative line of life; many of the hardiest of the emigrants, as they arrived, followed their example: and thus not only was the progress of farming discouraged and retarded, but a belief began to prevail that the colony was unfitted for agricultural pursuits. The occasional large sums of money made by it induced also vast numbers of the farmers themselves to engage in lumbering—as a lucky hit in a mining country makes many miners-gradually to involve themselves in debts, and to tie up their farms by mortgages to the merchants who furnished the supplies which their life in the woods required. Thus not only were large numbers of the young men demoralised by their habits in the woods, trained to extravagant habits, and rendered unfit for steady agricultural labour, but very many of the actual owners of farms had become involved in overwhelming pecuniary difficulties, when the crisis of the lumber trade arrived, and stopped all further credit.

What added to the apprehension of the colonists at this time was the comparatively extensive emigration which began to take place when the demand for timber became less, and, consequently, for labourers to procure it. Undisposed to continuous farm-work, the lumberer left the province-as our navigators wander from country to country-to seek employment in Maine or elsewhere towards the West, where their peculiar employment was to be obtained. Even the pine forests of Georgia were not too distant for their love of free adventure. Unable to shake off their encumbrances at home, many of the embarrassed owners of farms also hastened to leave them

-some in the hands of their creditors, without even the form of a sale-and made for the new states of the West, under the idea that in a new sphere they would be free men again, and that probably a less degree of prudence

38

EMIGRATION AND THE FEAR CAUSED BY IT.

or industry might there secure them the competence which their own neighbourhood had denied them. No love of home, or attachment to the paternal acres, restrained either class of men; for these Old World feelings or notions have scarcely yet found a place among the AngloSaxons of any part of North America.

That such native-born and old settlers were leaving the province in considerable numbers, was construed into an indication that the province was inferior, as a place of residence, to the states and provinces to which they emigrated. Alarmists made it a topic of melancholy lamentation and gloomy forebodings; and, as in similar cases at home, party feelings laid hold of the emigration as a demonstration of the correctness of special party views, and exaggerated its evil effects. The departure of the working lumberers was a necessary consequence of the cessation of their favourite employment; and it was not considered that the moral character and habits of these men as a body, and the disheartened and embarrassed condition of the owners of the encumbered farms, rendered the departure of neither class a real loss to the population of the province; that the departure of both, in fact, was necessary, in order that the social state might have a fair chance of returning to a healthy, cheerful, energetic, and prosperous condition.

But if lumber, as a staple export, was to be insufficient to supply the future wants of the colony, in the way of paying for the necessary imports of West India produce and of flour, upon what were the colonists to fall back? Were the hitherto undervalued agricultural resources of the colony greater than they had been supposed? Could these 18,000,000 of acres really be made to support a population of 210,000 inhabitants, and thus enable them to dispense at least with the large importation of bread stuffs for which they had hitherto been yearly indebted to the United States, to Prince Edward's Island, and to

CITY OF ST JOHN.

39

Canada? Or were the mines of the country of such value as to make up for the failure both of lumber and of corn, and to enable New Brunswick to keep pace in future progress with the adjoining states and provinces?

Such were the ideas and questions which had been passing through men's minds when I was honoured with the request to visit the colony, and give an opinion upon its agricultural capabilities. I trust that the result of my tour has been to inspire new hopes and awaken new confidence in the food-producing and population-sustaining powers of the land of this valuable colony, though it has lessened very much in my mind the opinion I had previously derived from books as to the extent of its mineral resources.

The city of St John is situated at the mouth of the river of the same name, which falls into the Bay of Fundy. It has a safe, though not extensive harbour, the entrance of which is defended by Partridge and other small islands. The principal part of the town is situated upon a rocky peninsula, which stretches into the harbour, but it is now extending itself in various directions over the adjoining crags and hollows. Notwithstanding the depression of trade which had for some time prevailed, the surface of naked rocks was, at the time of my visit, selling at the rate of £100 an acre for building purposes; and tasteful cottages, on picturesque sites, were springing up in the neighbourhood of the city. The older inhabitants of the city, the descendants of American loyalists, have many interesting facts to relate regarding its growth, upon what, sixty years ago, was a rocky headland, skirted by cedar swamps; and, considering the still generally uncleared condition of the province, and the position of the city itself, its progress has been at least as rapid as that of any of the greater cities on the Atlantic border of the North American continent.

Yet that there has been a serious change for the worse

40

FALLING-OFF IN ITS TRADE.

in the trade of this part of the province is shown by the official returns of exports and imports from the port of St John, for the three years ending in December 1848. These are as follows:

Thus the exports have been regularly diminishing during these years, and consequently, though not immediately, the imports also. And, as affecting the trade with the mother country, it is an important fact that, of the total decrease in 1848, compared with 1847, no less than £336,100 were in the imports from Great Britain. Of this sum the diminution in the importation of— Manufactures of cotton, woollen, linen, and silk, was £157,421 Iron, wrought and unwrought,

Copper,

Hardware,

46,267

9,319

22,951

1,923

47,044

6,975

Thus, all our home industrial interests are concerned in the prosperity of our colonial possessions, and we help our own pockets when we contribute to their material advancement.

Another way in which this falling off in the exports and imports of St John had affected, not only the city, but the province in general, and had made people fretful and uneasy, besides embarrassing the Government, was the great reduction it caused in the revenue, a large portion of which is derived from the duties levied at the custom-houses, and from a small export-duty on timber. Thus, in the three years I have mentioned