450 OYSTERS, AND ALL ABOUT THEM. 



toll would produce an insufficient income, the fishermen 

 offered, if the duty were provisionally reduced to is. per 

 ton, to furnish from amongst their own body 12 water 

 bailiffs, to be approved of by the Corporation, together 

 with the requisite boats. The offer was accepted, and the 

 Order, as ultimately framed, fixed a toll of is. per ton in 

 the first instance, power being reserved to the Corporation 

 to increase the amount, with the sanction of the Board of 

 Trade. The arrangement, however, by which this low toll 

 was justified, at once fell through. The dredgermen acting 

 as water bailiffs exercised no control over their fellows, and 

 it is even stated that they were the first to infringe the rules 

 which it was their duty to enforce. In 1873, therefore, a 

 paid inspector was appointed, but he remained without a 

 boat until the present year ; he now has one which is unfit 

 for use upon the outer grounds, and he is entirely without 

 assistance. The inspector being thus crippled by deficient 

 means, his supervision of the beds, which are scattered over 

 100 square miles, is necessarily imperfect; but the income 

 derived from licenses is not enough to enable the Corpor- 

 ation to provide more effective control, and they have not 

 chosen to attempt to use the power of increasing the tolls 

 reserved to them under the Order; indeed, with a declining 

 fishery and growing poverty among the dredgermen, it is 

 obvious that there might be great difficulty in raising the 

 price of licenses, and that under such circumstances it 

 would have been much easier to continue a higher toll if it 

 had been so fixed originally. 



The fishery is worked at a loss. Its cost is 7$ per 

 annum; and the income, which in 1873 was ^80, had 

 declined in 1875 to ^40, and is estimated for the current 

 year at s- This state of things forcibly directs attention 

 to a serious difficulty which affects the proper working of 



