6i 



II 



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



on Special Duty, Fisheries Investigation. 

 Dated- — Madras, the 2Sth February 1907. 



I have the honour to lay before Government the 

 necessity for hiitiating a small Bureau of Fisheries for 

 Madras. I purposely do not call it a department con- 

 sidering that it should, for some years at least, be an 

 appanage of Agriculture ; it should, for the present, 

 consist of a small but permanent and efficient staff under 

 the control, presently, of the Agricultural Department. 



2. That every civilized country possesses a Fisheries 

 Department or Bureau, besides other fishery organiza- 

 tions ; that such departments have worked great benefits 

 to the industry, trade, and people ; that the industry of 

 third importance in the country demands the special 

 attention of its Government ; that when such industry is 

 in a primitive condition, without capital, initiative, or 

 knowledge other than traditional, some considerable 

 stimulation and assistance ab extra are essential to pro- 

 gress, are mere truisms, but not the less cogent as 

 general arQuments in favour of at least a bureau for 

 Madras. In a country so advanced, progressive, and 

 individualistic as the United States of America the 

 Federal and State Departments have worked vast 

 improvements by their researches, hatcheries, transplant- 

 ations, legislation, protection ; in a depressed country 

 like Ireland, the new department, following up the 

 work of the Congested Districts Board, is doing very 

 great stimulative and productive work. 



3. But it is Japan which teaches the power of a well- 

 organized department upon an industry in a position 

 of some original similarity to our own, in stimulating 

 development in every branch — whether of catching, 

 preserving, or cultivating — of an industry conducted, as 

 in India, on primitive lines ; in developing associated 

 work and sound trade methods and processes through 

 laws worked by its administrative officers ; in establish- 

 ing numerous experimental stations w^here new methods 

 are both tried, demonstrated, and pushed ; in giving 

 popular instruction not merely in regular fishery schools, 

 but through these stations and their itinerant experts 

 and by frequent exhibitions ; in sending abroad men foi 



