143 



European firms about Rs. 30, a 20 per cent, deduction 

 being made for sand. To this must be added a small 

 cost for carriage to Ceylon and the agency charges there, 

 except when the stuff is sent, as is now largely the case, 

 direct to Japan. Obviously, allowing largely for local 

 charges, freight, etc., there is a very large margin be- 

 tween Rs. 30 in Calicut or Cochin and Rs. 1 10 in Japan. 

 Hence while the export trade obtains a maximum of 

 profit with a minimum of labour and expense, and the 

 actual fishermen and local agents a minimum share of 

 the sale value, the country loses the whole of the stuff 

 itself. 



8. We have here an important contrast ; on the one 

 hand our sardines bring us in a money value of perhaps 

 Rs. 35 per ton of dried fish as the total result of our 

 sardine harvest ; on the other, if we, i.e., chs public, kept 

 the fish in the country and either ate it or put it on the 

 fields, we should, (i) as at present, provide the Indian 

 fishermen with about Rs. 22 to Rs. 25 per ton of dry 

 fish ; (2) as at present, the Indian commission agents 

 would get perhaps Rs. 5 per ton ; (3) if the fish were 

 used as food, we should provide a large body of curers 

 and operatives with a livelihood ; (4) we should largely 

 help in maintaining communications and those who live 

 by them ; (5) we should provide work and profit for a body 

 of wholesale and retail dealers ; (6) we should keep a 

 vast mass of food in the country. If used as fertilizer 

 we should (3) introduce a valuable industry in the 

 way of expressing fish oil and preparing fish fertilizer 

 from the scrap, an industry requiring only moderate 

 plant and technical skill ; * (4) we should utilise the oil 

 in batching jute, in the leather trade, and otherwise ; (5) 

 we should help to maintain communications in sending 

 the stuff up-country ; (6j we should have a vast mass of 

 the finest manure for our fields and a consequent vast 

 addition to our food-crops ; (7) we should provide 

 work and profit for a number of dealers and for our 

 co-operative agricultural associations. If, again, our 

 peasants would learn the true use and disposal of human 

 excreta, these fish after fi7'st being used as food and 

 doing work as such, would pass into the fields as the 



* Since introduced : in 1914 above 200 small factories were at work along the 

 coa,sts of Malabar and South Canara. 



