LABRADOR.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 2, 27 June 1911, Page 4

LABRADOR.

Saturday's wires stated that King George's first public act was to touch an electric button, laying the foundation stone of the Fishermen's and Sailors' Home at Newfoundland. Also that the King had facilitated Dr. Grenfell, responsible for the Home, upon his selfabnegatious work in Labrador and Newfoundland. Labrador is almost a terra incognita to most of us, but in a recent issue of the Geographical Journal Dr. Grenfell furnishes information about these unknown lands that will come as a great surprise to most people. He speaks from twenty years' acquaintance with Labrador, and declares: "It can and will carry;'"! the days to come, a population as easily as Norway does to-dav; it is a better country by far than Iceland, with which. I am a'lso'familiar. and to be greatly preferred to Lapland, Finland, Siberia and' Northern Alaska; and until the wizard' hand of man was turned to New Mexico, Arizona, or even to parts of Egypt and West Australia, it was able to offer as good attractions to settlement as any of them. When the distribution of plants and animals that are of service to man is no longer purely fortuitous, when man spends time and energy to find and cultivate vegetables and animals suitable to environments, Labrador will prove to bo a country not merely of value to the Empire of which it may be a part, but also to the human race a = an enormous adjunct to the already sufficiently diminished food-producing area of the globe. For if ever a race sliall rise to people her glorious fjords and inlets and to wrest her undoubted wealth from her forests'and mines, like all northern countries'-she will evolve a people endowed with those sterling physical qualities that characterised the"Viking of old, and with that resourcefulness and maritime genius which have ever been and still are, among the most highl-pri/-ed heritages of the English people." The veritable archipelago of islands existing along the Labrador coast, added to the extraordinary beauty of its northern brit7heT an 1 tiCfjonls ' iaex P ect,> 'l t '' bring the already increasing number of visitors up to the numbers of those who now annually seek nealth and recreation on the coast of Northern Europe. Dr Grenfell,says that at the mill at the mouth of the Hamilton river he has seen growing fields of oats and barley that have made him almost believe lie was at home j„ The growth of «l. 'but the woodi, (herein- rendered more stringy am, lb,, better for conversion into paper. There, are areas in Labrador which certainly ~„, be successfully worked for pulp, a „ (1 Labrador possesses an almost inexhaustible water-power, waich in the fnlurtWwill undoubtedly be one of. ber chief economic assets 'Dr (-renfcll does not believe that anvwhere "i the world the wild berry crops of Lab. rador can be- excelled. " '