 Arnaud de La Porte, relatively inexperienced, was inclined to trust colonial administrators on matters relating to the areas they governed and so was convinced by Hocquart's arguments.As a result, the Ministry reversed its former policy of austerity and released a half-million livres between 1737 and 1741 towards agricultural and industrial development in Canada.A remarkable economic explosion soon followed with the Saint-Maurice Forge (the oldest operating steel mill in North America when it finally closed down in 1883), beginning to produce on a larger scale and shipbuilding flowering into an export industry.