51 



as to yield, even to primitive methods, catches large in 

 comparison with those of Irish fishing- and yet small 

 compared with the catches (lo tons per head) of English 

 and Scotch boats and with the estimates of marine 

 productivity per acre made by commissions such as that 

 of 1863, there is a strong probability of very much 

 larofer catches with better means and orQanization. 

 Hence the desideratum now is more men and more 

 efficiently employed labour and better apparatus in 

 view to much orreater returns and a still laro-er utiliza- 

 tion of the harvests of the sea.""' 



20. The weakness of the exploitation of the sea for 

 ,, , .i„^, „f the Presidency o-enerally, on both 



General weakness or / & / ' 



exploitation of the coasts, may here be adverted to. It 

 Presidency seas. -^ ge^ei-ally understood that marine 



fishing on the West Coast is far more active and pro- 

 ductive than on the East Coast, a belief founded partly 

 on the small quantities brought to the curing yards of 

 the East Coast, partly on the small size of the boats 

 (usually catamarans) there employed, partly on observa- 

 tion ; the 30 and 100 fathom limits are also far narrower 

 than on the West Coast. The total sea-coast line 

 {exclusive of sinuosities and indentations) is 1,600 geo- 

 graphical miles inclusive of Travancore and Cochin, 

 or 1,420 exclusive: by the census of 1901, there were 

 402,353 persons (or not much above i per cent, of the 

 total population) interested in fishing, curing, or dealing, 

 of whom, however, 204,126 were non-working depend- 

 ants, leaving 198,227 workers ; this includes all inland 

 and estuarine fishermen, persons partly agriculturists, 

 and all those classed as fish-dealers very many of whom 

 are the wives of the fishermen who hawk the fish in the 

 streets and villages, the numerous petty fish sellers, and 

 the runners who take the fresh fish inland. Out of 

 these 198,227 no less than 46,440 or nearly one-fourth 

 are found in the two districts of Malabar and South 

 Canara with a sea frontage of only 240 miles out of 

 1,420 or one-sixth. But this one-fourth provides three- 

 fourths of the whole amount of fish brought to the 

 fish-curing yards of the Presidency, of which there are 

 47 on the West Coast as against 89 on the East, or, 



* Later investigations show that, including the vast quantities of sardines 

 which are beacli dried for manure, the weight of fish taken in a good year on the 

 West Coast is far larger than is suggested in this paragraph. 



