Untitled - Memorial University's Digital Archives - Memorial ...

fishennen's side, life spent on credit meant perpetual debt. A common situation was thaI
the summer's catch barely paid for previous debts, and to obtain winter supplies another
debt was incurred. 1 Besides, when a fishennan's fish production was interrupted because
of age, disability, or death, his sons and grandsons wefe called upon to pay his debts.
Only if no instalments had been paid for a period of six years was Ihe debt automatically
cancelled. The merchant being the only source of supply, the fishermen would nOI risk to
offend him, and rather than claim their due, submitted 10 his will to preserve their family's
and their own welfare.2
62
An ailcrnative view contends that this credit system was cooperative rather than
exploitative. The truck would work as a kind of insurance, balancing the risks of the
merchant's credit and the fishennen's yield. Nothing was less uncertain than the price of
fish, which indeed depended on a diversity of variables: the scarcity of fish or bait, the
poor weather for curing (drying), the prevalence of ice late in the spring, or low prices.
The merchant could never be sure that the fish production would cover the cost of his
supplies; the fishennen scarcely lived above bare subsistence level. The merchant played a
vital role in the subsistence of the community in operating the egalitarian distribution of
wealth between the fishennen and their families. While supplying them evenly at the
beginning of the season, he would find compensation for one family's short yield in
another's good one.3 So, if the fishennen were totally dependent on the merchant to sell
their product, and were probably exploited, they usually did not starve to death.
Conversely, the profit of sale in good times hardly touched the primary prcx:lucers.
Newfoundland enjoyed a monopoly over the world salt coo markets and all economic
boom during World War I, yet the decrease of the annual production of fish per man
througholltthe nineteenth century resulted in the impoverishment of both the merchants and
the fishennen, and the gradual collapse of this system of trade in the depression years.
The increased cost of food and the rise in wages brought significant changes in the
fishery. The residents employed fewer men but relied more and more on.Jhe unpaid labour
of their wives and children, and now turned their catch over to the merchants. All these
circumstances brought about a shift from the migratory to the sedentary fishery and
1Lawrcncc. G. Small, "The Intcrrrelalionship of Work and Talk in ,I Ncwfoundland Fishing
Community," PhD thcsis. U of Pcnnsylvania. 1979, 9-12.
20tlo Kelland, Dories and Dorymen (S1. John's: Robinson, 1984) 146-9.
3Wilfrcd W. Warcham, introduction. The Lillie Nord Easter: Reminiscences of a Placentia
Bayman, by Victor Butlcr, MUN Folklore and Languagc Publicalions, Community Studics
Series TlO. 1 (SI. John's: MUN. 1975) 15-7.