were accepted as such by the Government of Madras betwten 1872 

 and 18S8 ; Mr. Thomas drafted two if not three P'isheries Bills and 

 supported them with his well-known enthusiasm. But there was no 

 department to be influenced by his enthusiastic labours or to carry on 

 his work, and now, save for an "Indian Fisheries Act " (1897), we 

 are just where we were when Mr. Thomas left the country, exct^pt 

 that we have lost many years of time and his experience and 

 knowledge. Had there then been an Agricultural Department with 

 fisheries as one of its permanent Bureaux, this great subject could not 

 have dropped almost into oblivion as it has, save for a few fish- 

 curing yards, in the absence of practical interest and continuous 

 policy. 



Sea Fisheries. — These are already of some importance, but are 

 even less developed than local agriculture ; they have had neither 

 attention nor capital devoted to them, and, as Mr. Thomas says, bear 

 about the same relation to British fisheries, as a catamaran does to a 

 steam trawler. For instance there is no deep sea fishing ; the boats 

 are usually of the catamaran or canoe class, and night fishing is not 

 general ; the boats usually start in the morning and return in the 

 evening and the practice of staying out for weeks is impossible. Yet 

 it is certain that the Indian seas swarm with valuable fish , the hauls 

 obtained even by the coast fishermen show this. In the Madras 

 coast line of about 1,750 miles (inclusive of Travancore and Cochin) 

 there must be fishing grounds of above 30,000 square miles or 

 20,000,000 acres, the fish life of which in tons is incalculable. At one 

 cwt. per acre per annum the produce would give 1,000,000 tons per 

 annum or about the same as that — including shell fish — now brought 

 annually into Great Britain. When we remember that Great Britain is 

 principally a meat-eating country, that it imports other edibles to the 

 annual amount of ;^i 60,000,000 and that its manurial as well as its 

 food-supply depends but moderately upon its fisheries, it may he 

 assumed that in this Presidency, where 90 per cent, of the population 

 will eat meat and fish but are unable to obtain such diet in sufficient 

 quantity, a supply of 1,000,000 tons would easily be consumed. The 

 enormous importance of even a million tons of fish will be seen by 

 the following facts : assuming that one-half of the above is not 

 actually edible, the remaining half million tons will give about two 

 ounces of highly nutrient food per diem to 25,000,000 people for a 

 year, while the remainder as oftal, bones, non-edible fish, etc., would 

 yield valuable manure sufficient, of its class, for probably 5,000,000 

 acres. To these considerations may be added the additional employ- 

 ment given to myriads of the fishing class and to those employed in 

 the connected industries of boat-building, net-making, curing, manure- 

 making, oil-extracting and the like, while there would be a large 

 addition to the demand for salt and to the carrying and other trades 

 of the country. 



This is not the place to indicate the methods of developing the 

 vast possibilities of this branch, which will demand the building of 

 large fishing-smacks (such as the dhonies and pattimars of the coasl)- 

 prohablywiih salt 7vater wells, as in some English fisheries, to enable boats 

 to keep the sea for days together and yet to bring back their catches aVve, 

 the employment of capital, and a considerable amount of assistance 



