Local Government in Newfoundland

• Published in: Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science
• Main Author: Crosbie, J. C.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge University Press (CUP) 1956
• Subjects: General Earth and Planetary Sciences; General Environmental Science; Newfoundland
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/138438; https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0315489000007064

Any study of local government in Newfoundland requires some consideration of the general historical, political, economic, and geographical background and environment which, to a great extent, have shaped its structure and dictated its peculiarities and problems. The most startling fact about Newfoundland's local government is that apart from the capital city of St. John's, there were no local-government bodies in the island until 1938. The fisheries have been the all-important factors in the shaping of its political, economic, and social life from its discovery in 1497, determining its destiny and endowing it with its unique character. Although various settlements were formed under a series of charters as early as the reigns of James I and Charles I, so little progress was made towards colonization that by the middle of the seventeenth century Newfoundland contained less than 2,000 inhabitants scattered along the eastern shore in tiny settlements. By that time it was considered contrary to national policy to allow fishing communities to spring up in Newfoundland or to permit seamen to winter there. The policy was formulated first on the theory that the fishing banks were “a nursery for seamen” whose return to Britain in the autumn of each year was of fundamental importance in maintaining the maritime prosperity and naval supremacy of the mother country, and second because of the influence of the West of England fishing merchants who wanted to maintain their monopoly of the fishery and resisted any attempt at colonizing Newfoundland. Thus a series of restrictive charters was issued by the Privy Council discriminating against settlers in Newfoundland. Nevertheless, by 1783, approximately 10 thousand settlers lived there, even though no indefeasible title to property existed on the island.