Editing Newfoundland and Labrador (section)

==== The Great Depression and the return of colonial rule ====
[[File:Colonial riot 500.jpg|thumb|left|People in front of the [[Colonial Building]] protesting against economic conditions, 1932. In the next year, the government of Newfoundland collapsed, and the British government resumed direct control over Newfoundland.]]
Following the stock market crash in 1929, the international market for much of Newfoundland and Labrador's goods—saltfish, pulp paper and minerals—decreased dramatically. In 1930, the country earned $40 million from its exports; that number dropped to $23.3 million in 1933. The fishery suffered particularly heavy losses as [[Dried and salted cod|salted cod]] that sold for $8.90 a [[quintal]] in 1929 fetched only half that amount by 1932.<ref name=":3" /> With this precipitous loss of export income, the level of debt Newfoundland carried from the Great War and from construction of the [[Newfoundland Railway]] proved unsustainable. In 1931, the Dominion defaulted.<ref name=":3" /> Newfoundland survived with assistance from the United Kingdom and Canada but, in the summer of 1933, faced with unprecedented economic problems at home, Canada decided against any further support.

Following retrenchment in all the Dominion's major industries, the government laid off close to one third of its civil servants and cut the wages of those it retained. For the first time since the 1880s, malnutrition was facilitating the spread of [[Thiamine deficiency|beriberi]], [[tuberculosis]] and other diseases.<ref>{{cite web|last=Higgins|first=Jenny|date=2007|title=Great Depression – Impacts on the Working Class|url=https://www.heritage.nf.ca/articles/politics/depression-impacts.php|access-date=January 25, 2022|website=heritage.nf.ca|archive-date=January 25, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220125153442/https://www.heritage.nf.ca/articles/politics/depression-impacts.php|url-status=live}}</ref>

The British had a stark choice: accept financial collapse in Newfoundland or pay the full cost of keeping the country solvent. The solution, accepted by the legislature in 1933, was to accept a de facto return to direct colonial rule.<ref name="collapse">{{cite web|url=http://www.heritage.nf.ca/law/collapse_responsible_gov.html|title=Collapse of Responsible Government, 1929–1934|publisher=Heritage Newfoundland and Labrador|access-date=February 5, 2011|archive-date=December 20, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141220171415/http://www.heritage.nf.ca/law/collapse_responsible_gov.html|url-status=live}}</ref> In exchange for loan guarantees by the [[British Crown|Crown]] and a promise that self-government would in time be re-established, the legislature in St. John's voted itself out of existence.<ref name="Malone" />{{rp|8–10}}<ref>Peter Neary, Newfoundland in the North Atlantic World, 1929–1949 (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University  Press, 1988), especially chapter 2</ref> On February 16, 1934, the [[Commission of Government]] was sworn in, ending 79 years of [[responsible government]].<ref name="collapse" /> The Commission consisted of seven persons appointed by the British government. For 15 years, no elections took place, and no legislature was convened.<ref name="commission">{{cite web|url=http://www.heritage.nf.ca/law/commission_gov.html|title=The Commission of Government, 1934–1949|publisher=Heritage Newfoundland and Labrador|access-date=February 6, 2011|archive-date=December 20, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141220171931/http://www.heritage.nf.ca/law/commission_gov.html|url-status=live}}</ref>

Between 1934 and 1939, the Commission of Government managed the situation but the underlying problem, world-wide depression, resisted solution. The dispirited state of the country is said to have been evident in "'the lack of cheering and of visible enthusiasm' in the crowds that came out to see King [[George VI]] and Queen Elizabeth during their brief visit in June 1939."<ref name=":9">{{cite web|last=Neary|first=Peter|title=The History of Newfoundland and Labrador during the Second World War {{!}} Dispatches {{!}} Learn {{!}} Canadian War Museum|url=https://www.warmuseum.ca/learn/dispatches/the-history-of-newfoundland-and-labrador-during-the-second-world-war/|access-date=January 25, 2022|language=en-US|archive-date=June 7, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190607175224/https://www.warmuseum.ca/learn/dispatches/the-history-of-newfoundland-and-labrador-during-the-second-world-war/|url-status=live}}</ref>