( 52 ) 



Commissioner, West Berar, (p. ex), "that whatever 

 restriction may be imposed, no class of people will be so 

 affected as to interfere with their means of livelihood." If 

 the fisheries are improved the fishing classes will be largely 

 benefitted, and those localities possessing the best stocked 

 waters (other things being equal) w T ill have the most fisher- 

 men as a distinct class, because following this occupation 

 is easier than agricultural pursuits, although the exposure 

 is perhaps greater. Fishermen are an improvident class, 

 and in India, whether Hindus or Mahometans, are low 

 in the social scale, whilst in British Burma, as Bud- 

 dists, they are charitably doomed by the more righte- 

 ous of the sect to eternal perdition in the next state of 

 existence. 



LXIII. The most economical way of working fisheries is 

 Fishermen, how they work by persons who make fishing a distinct 

 fisheries, occupation, provided there is a suffi- 



ciency of work. They may be divided into the contractors or 

 lessees, who become tenants of rivers or portions of them, 

 canals, tanks or jhils, often having sub-partners, who take 

 shares in the fishery, and are remunerated by a proportion 

 either of the captures, or else of the money received for such, 

 after the payment of the rent and other expenses. Some have 

 coolies or paid servants, who either receive a stipulated sum 

 a day in money and fish, or else a certain or proportionate 

 amount of the captured fish, which they dispose of : and these 

 persons may be kept on regularly for merely the fishing sea- 

 son, or only occasionally as more hands are required. Second- 

 ly, there are those who, on payment of a license fee, are per- 

 mitted to fish in the Government waters otherwise unlet. 

 Thirdly, when the fisheries are declared free to all, and every 

 one is allowed to capture the fish as suits his convenience best. 

 Lastly, the general population may be given the right to take 

 sufficient for home consumption where they like, and how 

 they please, provided they neither sell nor preserve it. Con- 

 tractors almost invariably give the workers a personal inter- 

 est in the takes, and, whether sub-partners or coolies, they 

 generally have to provide their own nets, and for this purpose 

 the lessee or a banian advances money to purchase the raw 

 material, and thus the coolie becomes irrevocably involved in 

 debt. In some districts the fishing is free to every one with- 

 out any restrictions. This may be due to several independ- 

 ent causes, such as the difficulty in making the fishing 

 remunerative, owing to the rapidity of the current in rivers 

 or canals : to the paucity of fish, as in some hill streams and 



