i6 



15. The question of salt and salting or salt packing 



in barrels at sea is, however, an 

 The possibility of permit- immediate and practical one; bio^ 



ting large boats to take 1 1 1 • • 1 



cheap salt to sea. boats and cheap salt are intimately 



connected : as Major Alcock (" A 

 Naturalist in the Indian Seas") says of the fishing near 

 Puri, and as Dr. Day said many years before him, if 

 the Salt rules can be modified great results will 

 follow. The West Coast fishermen cheerfully and 

 volinitarily acknowledges the great benefit of cheap salt 

 in the curing yards and the efiect it has had not 

 only on the curing but on the catching of fish by the 

 increase caused in the demand for good dried fish. But 

 cheap salt cannot under present rules be issued to boats 

 proceeding to sea, and while, on the one hand, it would, 

 at present, be useless to issue such salt (except to Ratna- 

 eiri boats) since the boats are too small to remain at sea, 

 on the other hand, since it is obvious that even the 

 biggest boats, if without wells, could not, for want of 

 such salt, keep their catches from putrefying, the inability 

 to get cheap salt for use at sea is a reason militating 

 against the building of big boats: conversely and perhaps 

 more correctly, a rule granting the issue of cheap salt 

 would directly, tend towards the building of large boats 

 or would, at least, remove what is now a valid objection. 

 It is suggested that there be made in the Salt Depart- 

 ment a rule granting the privilege of cheap salt to boats 

 proceeding to sea, under such conditions as to size of 

 boats, duration of voyage, the due accounting for the 

 issues, etc , as may be found necessary. Probably the 

 Salt Department could frame a rule that salt might be 

 issued in moderate quantities to respectable boat-owners ; 

 the minimum amount of salt required for a given weight 

 of fresh fish is now fairly well known, viz., i to 5, 6, 7 or 

 8 according to the size of the fish, the weather method 

 of salting, etc., and the fishermen would have to account 

 to the curing yard officers, who would issue the salt and 

 inspect and weigh the takes, for the amount issued ; so 

 much salt issued, so much salted fish, balance of salt so 

 much. The risk to the revenue appears slight, especially 

 in comparison with the probable benefit to the industry ; 

 the fishermen will not, in general, run the risk of spoil- 

 ing their whole catches, of being prosecuted, and of 

 losing the privilege, for the sake of concealing and selling 



