A HALF-CENTURY OF GROWTH 165 



and on all other pickled fish at one dollar per barrel. The 

 Act of 1842 continued these duties with additional rates of 

 twenty per cent ad valorem on sardines and other fish pre- 

 served in oil; but fresh caught fish, brought in for daily 

 consumption were exempt from duty. By the Act of 1846 

 a forty per cent ad valorem duty was placed on anchovies, 

 sardines and all other fish preserved in oil, and a twenty 

 per cent ad valorem duty on foreign fish, whether fresh, 

 smoked, salted, dried or pickled, not otherwise provided 

 for. 1 



The duty on salt, which formed the basis of the bounty, 

 has been in the several tariffs as follows : for 1824, twenty 

 cents per bushel of 56 pounds ; that of 1828, the same ; that 

 of 1832, ten cents per bushel ; that of 1842, eight cents per 

 bushel; that of 1846, twenty per cent ad valorem. 2 



The change of the schedule of 1846 to a twentj^ per cent 

 ad valorem scale on salt and fish was of undoubted advan- 

 tage to the foreign importer, but the effect was depressing 

 upon American fishermen. The French fishermen and 

 those of the British provinces were brought immediately 

 into more active competition with ours. They possessed 

 the advantage of proximity to the great fishing grounds, 

 the French government paid its fishermen a bounty of about 

 one and one-half dollars per quintal for the fish they caught, 

 the price of labor was cheaper with both classes of people 

 than in the United States, the act of 1846 was favorable to 

 the importation of their fish into this country, consequently 

 they became formidable rivals of our fishermen in our own 

 markets. The imports of foreign fish increased at a rate 

 that filled New England fishermen with the gravest fears 

 for their industry. Their apprehension was well founded, 

 for under the tariff of 1846 the quantity of codfish and 



1 Tariff Acts of the U. S. Acts of April 27, 1816; Aug. 30, 1842; 

 July 30, 1846. 



2 Hunt, Merchant's Magazine, V, p. 26. 



