Cod and Credit

Newfoundland has always been intricately connected with the cod fishery. Even before the island was settled, European vessels would come to its shores to fill their boats, salt their catch, and return home. It was the “golden age of fish,” and in Britain, as in the rest of Europe, the fasts and ordinances of the church were strictly observed by the people. This meant that fish would be on the menu at least every Friday, as well as all the major fast days and more often during the church season of Lent. In England, which had laid its claim to the island in 1583, the king issued an order that everyone was to eat fish on Wednesday and Friday of each week. During these early years, settlement on the island was forbidden, though they could live there during the summer, everyone must return home to in the Fall. In later years as laws relaxed and settlements began to spring up, the fish merchants of England also set up shop in the colony.

One cannot think about the fishery of Newfoundland without thinking also of what came to be known as the credit system, whereby the merchant issued supplies to the fishermen in the Spring and was repaid at the end of the season in fish. It is impossible to say when the system began, but it probably arose out of the fact that the merchant who exported the fish also sold provisions and fishing supplies. At the beginning of the season a man with no money to buy food and with nothing to fish with would make a bargain with the merchant; If the latter would supply him with all he required, he would repay the debt out of the fish he caught. The merchant tried to ensure himself against loss by charging higher prices when giving credit than he would have charged for cash, so that any profit he made from one man would cover loss arising from the failure of another man.

The system, although successful at first, later led to great evils. In a poor season the merchant often advanced supplies not only in the Spring, but also throughout the winter. On the other hand, men who were not hard working piled up debts which they could hardly hope to repay and became in time almost the slaves of the merchants. Some of the most reckless and improvident of the fishermen didn’t seem to care about this state of affairs. As long as they could obtain a living they were satisfied; but it fell with particular harshness on the hard working man who sometimes fell into debt as a result of several poor fishing seasons. Even Industrious and successful men had reason to complain because they knew that the profit which the merchant was making on them was higher than it would have been if others were as hard-working as themselves. This system continued with little change until 1949, the year that Newfoundland voted to become a province of Canada.