Legislative A assembly

should read. It treats, of course, with the ship building industry at Port .Hill and Bideford and with the characters, the great characters, dynamic charactsrs that were involved in that great enterprise. It was an industry that was the foundation or the backbone of the economy of this Island for over fifty years. it was one that brought in millions of dollars in the building of ships and the exporting of timber. Men like the Bernards, and Thomas Canter, and William Ellis and James Yeo, who were the pioneers in this great enterprise, should certainly be remembered and I would commend to the Government that they take immediate steps to provide a fitting memorial to these gentlemen in the area of Port Hill. We are very fortunate to have the old James Yeo house; the Government owns it. It is still in a very good state of repair, although it is almost a hundred years old. It was built by the son of the original pioneer, Mr. James Yeo, and he was a distinguished son of a distinguished father. His father was too one of the original members of the Legis— lature here in 1839. His son, John Yeo, was also a member of the Legislature at the same time as his father. He later became a senator and it is said of John Yeo that he was for more years a representative of the people in the parliaments of this country than any other man in the history of the British Commonwealth. If that isn’t a record that should be memorialized then it is a strange thing to me.

Hon. Cecil A. Miller: ‘He was a Liberal, wasn’t he?

L. George Dewar: .He started out on the right track and went a little astray (Applause) but his father and his brothers were members of this Legislature and the House of Commons. Mr. James Yeo, who built the house at Green Park, was a Member of the House of Commons for quite a number of years. They are a family that are very intimately connected with the legislative and parliamentary life of his country and I would suggest that the Government not only establish a museum at the old house in Port Hill, a museum to the ship building industry. Mr. Basil Greenhill, who wrote the book, and who is the Director of the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, England, has agreed and offered to help to estab- lish a museum of that nature at Green Park. I think that’s an offer that should be taken advantage of! Also the Rev. Mr. Yeo at Port Hill, who is a grandson of Mr. James Yeo, who built the house, is very interested in the project and I am sure that he will give a great deal of time and effort to see that this might be done. It would also, I think, be appropriate for the National Monuments Board to erect a monument to those gentlemen such as Mr. James Yeo, Sr., his son, and the Hon. John Yeo, at that place. It is something that might be taken up by the Gov- ernment with the National Historic Sites and Monuments Board. I would also like to mention the fact that the Lady Slipper Drive goes through that area and I think this is something that should be promoted more by the Department of Tourist Development. I was pleased to sec, in reading the Acres Report, that they com— mended this type of thing on the Island and suggested that King‘s County should have 21 Kingsway Drive too. I think it’s something~ that tourists visiting here like to get more information about and I would commend this to (iovermncnt. We, of course. are having our troubles in West Prime, economically tilt same as they are in oth<r parts of the Island. We did have one bright prospect during the past year and this was the Irish Moss industry. I think this was the salvation of :1 great many of our citizens in West Prince during the past year. It was really a bonanm and I think anything the Government can do to promote this industry and, probably I should mention that it also saved the Minister of Fisheries from having to present an embarrassing statement that the fishcl‘ivs had declined in this Pro- Vince, because without the increase in the tonnage and Value of Irish moss landed in this Province, his figures wouldn’t have looked nearly as well as they did. I’m very pleased to see this development. I might mention that ten years ago I was in New York and I visited the Head Office of the Marine Colloid people there and I asked them to come and develop somethingr like, this in W'cstorn Prince and they said they were studying the matter and that they certainly would look into it. However, it took nearly ten years for anything to happen and I must give some credit. perhaps a lot of credit, to the former Minister of Fisheries, the former Ad- ministration, because it was through work on his part, and communications with the Federal Government, that the first plant was erected to dry and treat the Irish Moss. It started something rolling because, in a short time two other companies, the Marine Colloida and, I believe, some Danish Company, have opened up a plant

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