234 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 



eduction.* As regards the operations of the Salt-herring 

 Shipowners' Association, or " Vereeniging van Zoutharing- 

 reederijen ' before alluded to, this corporation did in two 

 ways contribute to keep Dutch brand-herring at high 

 prices. Firstly, it limited the supply in the markets 'as 

 soon as a tendency to fall became manifest Secondly, 

 it greatly enhanced the cost of production of the article 

 as delivered to dealers. The association's expenses of 

 management, warehousing, &c., were excessively high, so 

 as often to swallow up the whole of the premium, and 

 make it the shipowner's interest to forego the bounty and 

 keep free of the association. Most shipowners indeed kept 

 within the latter, but mainly, it would appear, because the 

 association in course of time acted not only as their sole 

 client but their banker, and embarked in credit operations 

 entirely alien to its primitive sphere of action. f 



Of the other branches of sea-fishery little need be said 

 during the period now under consideration. Whaling was 

 extinct, or very nearly so, and when mentioned at all in 

 the writings of the period, is spoken of as a trade lost to 

 the country. The somewhat reckless enterprise of the 

 African Whaling Company had been wrecked long ago, 

 during the English war. Of the several whaling companies 

 started within a few years from the renewal of premiums in 

 1815, the greater part liquidated shortly afterwards. One 

 corporation, of which King William I., a strenuous pro- 

 moter of all national industries, was a shareholder, 

 continued to work two old whaling vessels until a much 



* Vide Appendix xxii. and xxiii. to the Report of the Committee on 

 Sea-Fisheries, 1854. I have refrained from reproducing these, and 

 other interesting statistical documents, in order not unnecessarily to 

 extend the volume of this work. 



f Report of the Committee on Sea-Fisheries, 1854, p. 199. 



