This study of Newfoundland is a brilliant combination of first-hand observation, and of research into fascinating source materials. Professor Fay made tours of Newfoundland and of Labrador and examined documentary material in London and the West Country. Both his observations and his source-material are fresh and stimulating, and he writes in his usual lively provocative style.

Professor Fay relates the economic history of Newfoundland to the seafaring and commercial background of the Island's first inhabitants. Many parallels can be drawn between life in early Newfoundland and in the west of England where the enterprises which first discovered Newfoundland and its resources were founded. Despite legal restrictions on the growth of permanent settlements, Newfoundland developed inexorably from a simple fishery to a full-fledged colony. And just as Newfoundland could not help its progression from fishery to established settlement, so today it is inevitably pressing towards industrial maturity.

The material in this volume is based upon a series of lectures first delivered in 1953 at Memorial University, St. John's Newfoundland.