THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 149 



privileged, inasmuch as they are allowed to sell herring at 

 sea and abroad ; and it would be the Grand Fishery's ruin 

 to expose them to competition on such unequal terms as 

 these. Thirdly, the smoked-herring business will be upset 

 if coast fishermen take to curing, and English " bucking 5: 

 will gradually supersede the Dutch. To the first of these 

 arguments it was objected that there could scarcely be any 

 difference in quality between the herring caught by either 

 party, as busses and bum-boats, or " pinken " fished side by 

 side, in the same sea and season. Besides, if the herring 

 caught by the latter were unfit for curage, how could the 

 Grand Fishery fear their competition, or the extinction of 

 the smoked-herring business ? The argument based upon 

 the Grand Fishery's greater risks and charges was met by 

 the query " whether it was more expedient for the country's 

 interest that much should be risked for little gain, or that 

 considerable profit should be made with little or no ex- 

 posure ? " As for the liberty to sell herring abroad, any coast 

 fishermen would of course have had to give up that 

 privilege if he had taken to curing. As a last and conclu- 

 sive argument, the petitioners from the coast showed that 

 the Grand Fishery, in prohibiting them from curing herring, 

 acted as judges in their own case. So they undoubtedly did ; 

 but their judgment does not appear to have been further 

 appealed from at the time, and their monopoly of curing 

 remained in force long after the end of the Republic. 



The coast fishery might indeed have proved serious 

 competitors to the Grand Fishery if they had been given a 

 chance. It is stated that in 1751 one hundred and twenty 

 boats sailed from Scheveningen alone* and the whole 

 number of busses in that year was not quite double the 

 figure. The smoked-herring business appears in the next 

 * Europische Mercurius, 1754, vol. i. p. 62. 



