OUR ISLAND STORY 29

flail, and sell his produce to merchants who could not give him cash for it, the burden of the rent payment would not have been intolerably heavy. But, in the circumstances that prevailed, many persons could not bear it; and it became a cause of debt and dissatisfaction, of personal agitation and political turmoil for many years. >

After a trial of a year or two, many immigrants who could manage to do so left the Island and went on to Canada or to the United States. But the great majority could not afford to leave,— so they remained to labor and to wait in a condition of discontent with what they considered to be proprietory bondage." But, by degrees and despite the handicap of the leasehold system, they gained comfort and wealth. “Labor omnia vincit.” There were many large families, and the youth of both sexes, as the years passed, came to the aid of their parents, working on the farm and in the home, By degrees the area of settlement was extended, until throughout the whole country, the forest was conquered and the land cultivated.

In the meantime, mills were erected and shipyards establish- ed over the streams and on the borders of the rivers and harbors. A relatively large ship-building industry was developed. Ships were built and loaded with lumber or grain, sent to market in Great Britain, and there sold at prices profitable to their enterprising owners. Ownership in many of the ships was retained and freight accepted for transport to countries far and near, new and old. A considerable amount of wealth was, in this way, accumulated on the Island. Employment was given to numbers of ingenious and capable men brought from the Mother Country or born and trained on the Island. Grist mills and carding mills were erected on sites convenient to the farmers, and many small local industries flourished in the towns and villages. The farmers-— those who established and maintained the chief industry of the Island—wwere thus supplied with the necessaries of life,the materials of which food and clothing are made,——and both were made in every home.

Towards the improvements that were thus gradually intro- duced, the proprietors of the lands contributed little—many of