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Due
to the fire calamity, Saint John business had the opportunity to move
their capital from shipping and shipbuilding to transportation,
merchandising, banking, and other land based service industries. At this
time freight rates were too low to continue investing in the wooden
sailing vessels and in addition to the low freight rates, a massive amount
of capital was required for the steamships. It was now safer to invest in
the land based industries. Saint John shipowners continued to invest $8
million in wooden ships because they "blindly believe that never
will come the day when...sailing ships shall be forced from the great
carrying traffic of the world".Therefore, the era of
shipbuilding had passed but not without leaving a significant economic
legacy to the generations that followed.
An
1882 Canadian postal card sent by the Maritime Bank in Saint John to the
Maritime Bank in Woodstock. Card is cancelled with a combination circular
CDS and a circular killer strike. There are no backstamps.
John Rodgerson, our most
famous wood-carver, wrote in 1884, "The carving business has,
vulgarly speaking, 'gone to pot'. The revolution effected in the
shipbuilding business the past few years, and the substitution of steam
for sailing has splintered the trade...formerly we had on hand carving for
fourteen vessels in a year, now we don't have more than four a year".
His comment reflected the dilemma many Saint John workers found themselves
in: they had no work and were unable to switch their trade to the new
jobs. Hundreds were unempolyed and stayed so. A few, like Rodgerson, did
adapt their trade, for he turned his carving talents to furniture and
architectural details.
The
city's industrial capital, employment, and industrial output increased
during this decade. However, the population of Saint John decreased. In
1882 P.R. Edictor ("predictor") speculated in an address
to the Ladies Society of the Congregational Church that... "in
fifty years time Saint John would have a population of 468,000. To
accomodate such numbers various carrying lines would be inaugurated to
transport people to and from work and places of leisure."
For example, there would be a rapid-transit double-tracked elevated
railway skirting the south end in much the same way the Lower Cove Loop
does today. The one harbour ferry would be expanded to three.
On the social side of things he predicted that "rum
and intemperance have now for many years been unknown evils, and the jail
is the most rickety, unused building in the city, while the police are
getting rich in peaceful avocations...."
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New Brunswick Community College - Saint John.