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“Success to the F isheries," “Ships, Colonies and Commerce,” “Self—Government and Free Trade,” were all imported by private indi— viduals and passed off with the “half cash, half trash" which the Shipwrights used to get as their pay. The coin representing true money bore in relief a small oak tree under a larger one, with the Latin inscription of “Parvo sub Ingenti,” which being freely translated means, The small shall flourish under the great. The large oak represents England, the small one Prince Edward Is- land. While it was the only Island coin the people were sleeping over a mine. As re- lated above, the mine had been fired—the small oak was blown from its fertile soil and has been transplanted into an ungenerous one, manured with broken promises and wa‘ tered by unfulfilled contracts. The Island joined the Dominion. It was expected that it would be put in the same position as the other provinces. That has not been done. It can be done only by the construction of a tunnel. Then and not till then can this province flourish as she did as an indepen- dent, self—governing colony. The fiscal policy which surely is some benefit to the mainland makes hewers of wood and drawers of wa- ters of the people of this province. Forced to import everything now in the shape of manufactured goods, obliged to pay duties double and triple what would be necessary for our own wants if free. compelled to com- pete with a people who can get one long haul freight rate against three short haul freight rates, isolated to all intents and purposes so far as trade and commerce are concerned one-third of the year, driven to enforced idle- ness every winter by reason of the destruc- tion of our factories and the loss of shipbuild- ing, this “brighest jewel in the British Crown,” this “Garden of the Gulf," this fair-

PAST AND PRESENT OF

est, healthiest and most fertile province, is fast becoming the graveyard of expatriated Islanders. No longer have we any statistics of our trade and'commerce; even the customs clerk, who kept the record of our imports and exports, has been stolen from us——our trade is credited to Halifax, St. John or Montreal. No longer is the busy hum of industry heard in the country. The spinning wheel is an heirloom, and the loom has been used as kin- dling wood. The carriage builder is a horse trader and the shoemaker a cobbler. The mil- ler poaches salmon and the blacksmith is a tinker. The sheep which gave us the loan of its cast-off coat is now exported alive to help feed our absent brethren, sojourning in an alien’s land. Prince Edward Island still lives. Some day, if her sons be true to her, she will be redeemed. Let the broken promises be made good and the unfulfilled contracts be carried out and she will not be long asserting herself.

Meantime we will examine the figures of her imports in 1872-3. the year before con— federation and the last year of authentic rec- ord of trade: Exports. $2,429,078 in this year, with a population of 75,000, means (others things being equal, and taking only ratio of population) an import trade of $3,- 200,000, now (1906). But other things are not equal. The loss of our industrial in- stitutions, for. as before stated, our manu- facturies are closed and the country has been invaded by the Canadian commercial traveler, till the people have been inundated with all manner of goods and implements; the once frugal farmers have been pestered into buy- ing more machines, buggies. harness, organs, pianos and goods they could well do with less of. until today a tax on the commercial man is popular enough to he made into a source of revenue. At least the imports are