THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 259 



old, to which foreign dealers were used ; but any one who 

 chose was free to sell or export unbranded herring. 



Sea-fishery Reform was now complete, and the trade 

 allowed entire liberty in every respect. I shall briefly 

 relate, in a last chapter, what effects were wrought by the 

 measure. 



CHAPTER IV. 



REVIVAL. 



IT is, I believe, a fact now known on every considerable 

 fish market that Dutch sea-fisheries have been increasing fast 

 for the last fifteen years. There is no need of words to 

 state the fact ; it may be seen at a glance from the fishery 

 statistics of the last twenty-five years, the leading figures of 

 which I have compiled from the annual Reports of the 

 College, or Board of Sea-fisheries, instituted in 1857, and 

 beg to lay before the reader in Appendices K, L, and M. 

 It now remains to be shown how the increase, and indeed 

 the entire revival of the business, was a direct consequence 

 of fishing liberty substituted for fishery regulation. The 

 task is an easy one ; for, from 1857 downward, the above- 

 named Reports contain every particular relative to the 

 history of Dutch sea-fisheries. 



The revival alluded to is nowhere so apparent as in the 

 herring fisheries ; for a general survey of which, from 1857 

 downward, I refer the reader to Appendix K. It will be 

 seen from this table : 



ist. That bumboat fishers in the coast villages used 

 their new-gotten right to cure herring on an insignificant 

 scale for some ten years after they had obtained it. 



2ndly. That the prices fetched by their cured-herring 

 were, on an average, not much inferior to those of " buss- 

 herring " cured in keeled vessels. 



