6 MADRAS FISHERIES BULLFTitf VOL. XV 



in trade. So far as India is concerned these adverse conditions 

 may be enumerated as under, namely — 



(a) a glut of imported goods bought during the months when 

 business was booming and thrown on the markets last year at 

 particularly low prices — often even below cost — in order to obtain 

 ready money to meet business exigencies caused by the financial 

 stringency of recent days ; 



(b) the disposal of large quantities of surplus stores of tinned 

 fish by the Munitions Department at similarly low prices ; 



(c) the sweeping reduction in the number of English troops 

 stationed in India ; and 



(d) the withdrawal by the South Indian Railway Company of 

 the concession enjoyed during previous years of sending canned fish 

 at half parcels rates, coupled with the recent large enhancement 

 of rates plus a surcharge. 



In some respects the last of these causes has been the most 

 detrimental, for freight now bears a wholly disproportionate relation 

 to the factory value of the goods, amounting to from 30 to nearly 50 

 per cent of such value. As a consequence many old customers have 

 ceased to order and others complain of the heavy freight charges. 



Efforts have been made to bring the products of the cannery 

 more prominently to the notice of the public and to give an impetus 

 to sales by sending representative samples to local exhibitions, by 

 advertising and by wide circulation of a new price-list got up in 

 attractive booklet form. New and distinctive labels have also been 

 designed and are now in the press. Beyond a temporary fillip, the 

 advertisements have not effected much, apparently due to the heavy 

 railway rates that handicap a direct parcel trade with the populous 

 cities in the north of India. It is evident that a reorganization of 

 selling methods is required ; I consider that a Government depart- 

 ment should not carry on its sale operations by direct retail trade, 

 but should entrust sales to a restricted number of wholesale agents 

 Who already have the machinery required for distribution. But this 

 alternative has its own particular difficulties, for the production of 

 the cannery is after all that of a plant designed primarily for experi- 

 ment and demonstration ; the output is greater than can be disposed 

 of within the Presidency by personal recommendation and at the 

 same time is far too small to be worth the consideration of a whole- 

 sale house with business relations throughout India. Such a firm 

 has no use for the limited produce of our experimental plant, which 

 averages only some 700 cases of miscellaneous goods per annum, 

 whereof only some 300 cases are of sardines (the ordinary case of 

 one-fourth size tinned sardines contains 100 tins). Such a pro- 

 duction is too paltry for a wholesale firm to consider when it becomes 

 a question of extensive advertisement to push a new and unknown 



