( 92 ) 



more minute enquiries have shown to have heen usually de- 

 rived from erroneous impressions. This subject, therefore, 

 has been more fully dwelt upon elsewhere. 



XCIII. Ninthly, that doing anything would be an 

 » .. ,. .. interference with trade (p. lxxxi, 



Trading objections. „ . „ . , . ,, ^ , . ' 



&c.) or " tree industries (p. lxxij ; 

 and doubtless if the present wasteful mode of fishing in some 

 parts of India is regulated, it will be an interference perhaps 

 with trade, certainly with poaching. It can hardly be denied 

 that a certain comparison may be drawn between fish and grain 

 employed as food. In the North-West Provinces (p. clxxv) 

 the poorest classes cat small fish instead of meal or 

 flour of any kind. It is observed in the Panjiib that the one 

 is exchanged for the other (p. xxv) : thus, when grain is 

 cheap, it obtains double its weight : when dear, an equal pro- 

 portion. Also (p. xxvii) that fish are not sold, but when- 

 ever the zemindars feel inclined to eat it, they generally 

 give the fishermen some grain in repayment for catching it. 

 In Bombay at Kandeish (p. xiv), that in a bad season 

 when grain is scarce and dear, fish forms a large proportion 

 of the food of the Bhils. In Madras, the sub-engineer at the 

 Dowlaisheram weir reported : — " The fish procured at the ani- 

 cuts in great numbers formed a great part of the food to 

 many poor classes of people in the late famine years" (before 

 186S). In Orissa, the Commissioner observed to the Famine 

 Commissioners: — " While the condition of the residents of this 

 place, where my camp is, is somewhat easier as living by 

 their fisheries, they arc not so affected by present circum- 

 stances." Now, if fish not only can be, but is, substituted in 

 times of scarcity for grain as food, surely it is an important 

 consideration whether a judicious interference which would 

 augment this source of nutriment, would be a politic or an 

 impolitic act. I cannot think that much would be believed 

 of a farmer's sagacity, who, desiring fish, the cost of which 

 was in accordance with the weight of grain, cut green 

 corn in exchange : neither do I think he would be much 

 more foolish than the fishermen who capture the fry or 

 young, whose food costs nothing. The Burmese suggested 

 that, if wrong, Government should stop it, and how could this 

 class of people be expected to leave immature fish alone, 

 when they would be liable to be taken in the next field or 

 piece of water. If, then, killing the fry is folly, does such 

 rest wholly with the fishermen ? In an English magazine 

 (June 1st, 1867) occurs the following : — " Sometimes free trade 



