June 20, 1894
Matters In Trinity Bay—Steam Tug Versus an Old Black Punt—No Toryism Wanted.
From Shoal Harbor to Trinity is a distance of fifty miles which, travelled twice a week, to and from, equals 200 miles. Last year, under the Whiteway Government, the staunch little steam-boat Dart was on the route, commanded by Captain Edmund Seward, and did good and satisfactory work for the public. During last summer this boat conveyed more than 300 passengers besides quantities of freight.
Note the contrast under the Goodridge-Morine faction! At this season of the year, when the traffic on Trinity Bay, in both the passenger and freight lines, is of considerable magnitude and importance, is it being performed by three or four men in a steamer? NO, but in an old black punt.
Retrogression with a vengeance!
Captain Seward informs us that about three weeks ago, eleven passengers in one trip and five in the next, from one place alone, could not be accommodated in this punt, and were left, to “paddle their own canoe” as best they could. Captain Seward, than whom there is not a man in Newfoundland who understands the navigation of Trinity Bay better, and who has performed the services for twelve years, when he found there was no chance to procure a steamer for the mail service on Trinity Bay, made application for his schooner to be received; but the gallant captain was informed that a punt, the ordinary “old black punt,” should perform the mail and passenger service on Trinity Bay this year. Whereupon he tendered for this punt and, although several dollars per trip below the man who got the job, his tender was refused, simply because Seward was a Whitewayite and the present incumbent, Milley, a Tory. Thus, then, Toryism versus Whiteway and Progress accounts for an old black punt performing the mail and passenger service on Trinity Bay today, instead of a tidy little steamboat with good accommodation, as furnished by the Whiteway Government.
Captain Seward called at our office to inform us that the people of Trinity District are heartily sick of, and disgusted at, the meanness, fraud and deception that is being practised by the Tory usurpers. All the electors of that old premier district want, is a chance—the ballot box—to show the kind of Government they want, the men they want, and what they intend before long to have, too.
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Transcribed by Wanda Garrett and Lester Green, September 2014; Last update March 2021
These transcriptions may contain human errors. As always, confirm these as you would any other source material.