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(d) The licensing of the fishermen engaged in 

 collecting oysters for market, in order the 

 better to exercise control over their actions. 

 These efforts to improve the position have been in 

 force over a period of thirteen years and to-day after a 

 careful examination of the principal creeks on the Sind 

 Coast where oysters were once abundant, I am reluc- 

 tantly obliged to describe them as completely exhausted, 

 and as no longer of any commercial value. To take one 

 instance — one very extensive creek with several far ex- 

 tending branches which had been closed to fishing", was 

 re-opened during my inspection and I came across one 

 oyster boat, the first and only one on the scene. Every 

 bed in the main creek and its branches had been despoiled 

 during the two days this boat's crew had been at work ; 

 practically every oyster that had grown up during the 

 period of closure had been taken away and withal the 

 boat was not full and the men were deploring the 

 unfruitfulness of their labours. Well mio-ht the late 

 Chief Collector of Customs in Sind, Mr. E. H. Aitken, 

 the lamented " Eha ", write in 1904 in a letter to the 

 Commissioner, " We do not need to look for any other 

 explanation of the almost total disappearance of edible 

 oysters from places which used to furnish them in abund- 

 ance than the reckless destruction of them which has 

 followed upon the increased demand since the practice of 

 packing them in ice made it possible to despatch them 

 to distant stations all over the interior." 



At the present time none of the Sind beds can 

 possibly become commercially productive unless they be 

 given a prolonged rest and some simple cultural mea- 

 sures be introduced to assist nature. A rest, by closure 

 for several years, by itself will be of doubtful benefit. 

 It may be of appreciable advantage, but there is no 

 certainty about the results. I am indeed inclined to think 

 that matters have gone too far for nature unaided to 

 renew the old prosperity within any reasonable time- 

 limit. Besides, the area of hard bottom available for 

 oyster attachment and growth is very limited in the 



