70 



Letter — from Sir F. A. Nicholson, k.c.i.e., I.C.S., 

 Honorary Director of Fisheries to the Government 

 of Madras. 



Dated — the 31st December 1907. 



It will be observed that I have not carried out the 

 programme sketched in my letter No. 88 (<5), dated 28th 

 February 1907, viz., of visiting Canada and Japan with 

 the view ol" arranging for the trainmg of students in the 

 latter country. I had in June taken my passage thither 

 but gave it up for considerations to be presently stated. 



2. New ideas and suggestions. — In criticizing my 

 Japanese report, Government objected to a Japanese 

 training for Indian students on the score of the language 

 difficulty, and desired me to ascertain whether similar 

 training could not be obtained in Great Britain or 

 America. On personal enquiry from officials and others, 

 both in England and America, I found that there is 

 nothing anywhere to correspond in any way with the 

 general and technical training provided by Government 

 in Japan ; the circumstances of all other countries are so 

 entirely different that no such training institution, 

 whether Government or private, is necessary or even 

 desirable ; catching including the whole art of sailing a 

 ship and using the nets with the skill and knowledge 

 bred of long practice, is only learnt by long apprentice- 

 ship at sea to the various branches ot the art ; niring 

 in all methods is learnt solely in the curing yards and 

 factories, and there is no technological school for its 

 scientific study ; pisciailUtre is on a somewhat different 

 footing since in America there is a great deal of piscicul- 

 ture carried out by various Government agencies ; so 

 also in Great Britain, but solely by private persons and 

 for the culture only of trout. 



3. The question then arose as to the training of 

 Indians in the three branches ; would the above circum- 

 stances compel or render desirable a Japanese training 

 notwithstanding the language difficulty ? 



4. As regards catching, here I must at once admit that 

 the idea of my Japanese note, viz., to send students to 

 the Japan Fishery Institute for training in this branch, 

 was wholly an error ; apart from the language difficulty, 

 there is the impossibility of transforming delicate Indian 

 College students into sailing masters and deep-sea fisher- 

 men. In every country, Japan not excepted, deep-sea 



