20 



to each man, woman and child of a quarter million 

 people which is probably the outside daily number 

 served with fresh fish on this coast. Assuming- the 

 total catches as 60,000 tons, each boat catches 12 tons 

 per annum or about i cwt. per working- day taken as 

 240 for the year after allowing for holidays, monsoon 

 and adverse weather, and other obstacles to fishing. 

 If the area within 30 fathoms from somewhat south of 

 Cochin to somewhat north of Coondapoor be taken as 

 4,800 square miles of 825 acres or, say, 4,000,000 

 acres, then the catches amount to i ton per 66 acres 

 or 34 lb. per acre ; if the area, easily fishable, within 

 TOO fathoms be considered, then the catches average i 

 ton per 200 acres or 1 1 lb. per acre per annum. These 

 catches are small in the aggregate, but it is to be noted 

 that the average amount of fish landed on the Irish 

 Coast in the three years 1902, 1903 and 1904 was 39,000 

 tons exclusive of a moderate amount of shell-fish ; this 

 was caught by about 21,000 men and boys (about 600 of 

 the latter) in Irish boats phis those in English and 

 Scotch boats who may have landed their catches on the 

 Irish Coast. Hence the average catch per fisherman in 

 Irish waters was below 2 tons, although at least half 

 the Irish boats and gear w^ere much superior to Mala- 

 bar boats, and a dozen steam trawlers and many decked 

 smacks are amongst the Irish fleet. But on our West 

 Coast 20,000 men and boys caught 60,000 tons, i.e., 

 3 tons apiece and considering the primitive nature ot 

 the apparatus used, the entire absence of powerful 

 vessels, machinery and nets, and the fact that all boats 

 and gear are worked solely by manual labour not very 

 effectively applied, this quantitative result shows that 

 the local waters abound in catchable fish. Moreover, 

 however imperfect the figures tentativ^ely adopted may 

 be, it seems clear that the labour of one man on the sea 

 is more productive than the sam(i labour on shore ; 

 each fisherman produces by his labour, with the addi- 

 tion of boats and gear which cost very moderate amounts 

 annually per fisherman, about 3 tons of highly valuable 

 food : on an average of years a man's labour on the soil 

 of this Presidency with the aid of cattle, ploughs, 

 manures, etc., does not produce any such equivalent of 

 food except, perhaps, under very favourable circum- 

 stances. It is clear, then, that since fish are so abundant 



