T922] MADRAS PEARL FISHERIES 145 



deferred, that at present I cannot set that this is a practicable 

 solution, so long as the fishery be conducted by Government. A 

 fleet of dredging vessels would be required and the maintenance of 

 these cannot be justified till a cultural scheme be perfected which 

 will ensure tolerably regular periodic (annual) fisheries. The most 

 that is feasible is to fit the fishery steamer with dredging equipment 

 and so enable her to do her share in the actual fishing operations.* 

 The same equipment would serve for the dredging of young oysters 

 for the purposes of transplantation, and it might also be utilized 

 for the dredging of chanks, though I doubt whether the results from 

 the last-named work would be sufficiently remunerative and would 

 counterbalance the extra expenditure that would be occasioned in 

 coal and oil. 



The alternative of obtaining a supply of Arab divers adequate 

 to work the fishery is left us. It appears to me that if due precau- 

 tions be taken to obtain true Persian Gulf divers in small gangs 

 under men who can give adequate monetary guarantee for the good 

 behaviour of the men supplied by them, that this plan is eminently 

 feasible. 



At the present year's Ceylon Fishery (1904) 258 Arabs were 

 allowed employment and Mr. Lewis, Superintendent of the Fishery 

 states in his report :f 



"As the fishery proceeded and the advantage of having them 

 " had become apparent, I was prepared to take more. They gave 

 "very little trouble, and were very useful both for the starting of 

 " the fishing and for keeping it going towards the end. They were 

 " always most keen on going out, no matter what the weather was, 

 "and they rather roughly handled a Jaffna tindal who started for 

 "the fishing one morning but turned back because his sail split. 

 'They offered to mend it for him, but he said he had no materials. 

 "Their indignation was great, and they were loud in their com- 

 " plaints. They are as used to handling boats as they are to 

 " diving, and had great contempt for tindals who were deterred 



* The results obtained during the Ceylon fishery of 1905, show that an average of 

 35,000 oysters may be reckoned as the daily catch of a ptoperly equipped small dredging 

 steamer under good management. The cost of wages and upkeep is considerably less 

 than the value of the divers' share of oysters, so we find dredging to be a mere economi- 

 cal mode of fishing than the employment of divers on the one-third share basis, provided 

 work can be found for the steamer in the off season ; this latter is the difficulty. 



f " Reports on the Pearl Fishery of 1904." Sessional paper No. XIII, Ceylon, 1904, 

 page 6. 



19 



