I5 2 MADRAS FISHERIES BULLETIN [VOL. XVI, 



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(e) Character of the supervision required. 



To place the entire management of the pearl banks under 

 scientific control is the only way whereby the inspection methods 

 can be satisfactorily reorganized and a permanent return to pros- 

 perity assured in regard to the pearl fishing industry. I cannot 

 well improve upon the words used in 1884 by the Hon'ble Mr. H. 

 Sullivan Thomas, then First Member of the Board of Revenue, in 

 his very valuable report to Government on this fishery, namely : — 

 " I think the deficiencies in the record of facts tend to show 

 that though in Captain Phipps the Government has had an intelli- 

 gent and painstaking officer, he has not been seconded by any 

 scientific supervision anywhere, and that his active interest in his 

 duties might have been turned to better effect if he had had from 

 time to time the assistance of some one who had leisure and 

 appliances for adding a scientific turn to the inquiries. It appears 

 therefore that if the Government contemplate ever constituting a 

 Fisheries Department, pearl fisheries should be combined with it 

 and have the advantage of any scientific knowledge that depart- 

 ment may have." * 



Looking at the matter from a practical point of view, I do not 

 consider that under present circumstances it would be advisable 

 to engage a qualified expert in economic biology to devote himself 

 solely to the care of the pearl banks, even though he be so 

 exceptionally qualified as to be able to combine the duties of marine 

 biologist with those at present performed by the Superintendent- 

 Inspector of Pearl Banks. 



To secure a really competent officer, a substantial salary would 

 have to be allotted to the post and, as we know, pearl fishery work 

 can only be carried out on the Madras coast for a maximum of five 

 months in the year. On the other hand, the potentialities of 

 profitable research in other directions are practically unlimited and 

 I think that the time is now ripe, and economic fishery science 

 sufficiently developed, to carry out the suggestion of organizing a 

 Fisheries Department as suggested twenty years ago by the 

 Hon'ble Mr. H. Sullivan Thomas. 



If this were done, and an officer appointed as Director, he might 

 be instructed to give his primary attention to the reorganization of 

 the pearl bank inspectional methods, the proper charting and 



* Loc. ciL, paragraph 96, page 29. 



