254 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 



On December 4th and 7th, 1855, Minister van Reenen 

 brought in two Bills for the final abolition of the system the 

 development and effects of which have been the principal 

 subject of the preceding pages. 



One of these Bills, treating of sea-fisheries, was a repro- 

 duction of the draft made out by the Committee more 

 than a year before. The other, treating of Customs duties 

 on fish, reduced these duties to an amount equivalent to 

 10 per cent, on salt and cured-herring and miscellaneous 

 salt fish (rommeling) of foreign catch, and abolished them 

 for all other descriptions of fish, whether fresh, salt, dried, 

 or smoked, including shell-fish. The duty on salt-herring 

 was fixed at fl. 1*50, or two shillings and sixpence, on 

 the barrel of 150 pounds. The duty on herring was 

 simply meant as a transitory measure not to expose the 

 fishery at once to the full effect of unrestrained foreign 

 competition. It should be noticed that the absolute pro- 

 hibition to import any foreign herring contained in the law 

 of 1818 had in the meantime been slightly mitigated. As 

 the Customs tariff stood in 1855, cured-herring was still 

 prohibited, but salt-herring not cured was permitted to be 

 imported in the months between November and May, 

 subject to a duty of fl. 3 on the 100 pounds, and "buck- 

 ing," or smoked-herring, was admitted at all times under a 

 duty of fl. 0*90 on the thousand. 



These two Bills were kept under consideration for a year 

 and a half, owing to a series of mutations in office actuated 

 by political motives alien to the subject of this work. As 

 far as the prevalent opinions in Parliament were concerned 

 both Bills might have been passed in a few weeks. Free 

 Trade, as said, strongly prevailed in Parliament ; and as 

 every system is carried to extremities in the first period of 

 its triumph, so " doctrinarism " in Free Trade, and the 



