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Commission of 1866 1 find a table giving the price of various kinds of fish during those 

 years both in the Manchester Fish Market and that of Newcastle-on-Tyne. The figures 

 are as follows : — 



Thus the price in both places was about doubled in the ten years. The average 



prices of soles per lb. in the past four years according to the Board of Trade returns 



are : — 



. 1886. 1887. 1888. 1889. 



9-Ud. 9-7Sd. ll-2\d. U-iGd. 



To compare these with the Manchester prices given above it must be remembered 

 that the latter prices are retail, or very nearly so : that is, they are the prices of the 

 fish after they had been carried from the landing place to Manchester, and therefore 

 include the cost of carriage and the profits of the merchants and salesmen. Thus the 

 rise in the price of soles since 1856 is at least from Bd. to Is. per lb., or fourfold : and 

 this is not due to any decrease in the value of money, for almost everything else has 

 become cheaper. 



It may be urged that the total quantity of all fish landed has not decreased but 

 only shghtly fluctuated. But this is no compensation for the scarcity and dearness of 

 soles. It may be partly due to the greater value of second rate fish caused by the 

 diminution in the supply of prime fish, and it may be partly due to the fact that many 

 kinds of fish such as herrings, mackerel, and pilchard vary considerably in abundance 

 in different years from causes which are apparently not connected with fishing 

 operations. But soles are stationary fish : they do not move in shoals, nor as far as we 

 know move about at all to any great distance, and the only cause to which we can 

 attribute the decrease in the supply is constant fishing. The decrease is certainly not 

 due to any decrease in the numbers of trawlers, for the trawling fleets grow larger 

 almost every year. 



The statistics I have discussed are as far as I can discover all that are available. As 

 a nation we ought to be thoroughly ashamed that no statistics worth the name were 

 kept either in England or Ireland before the year 1886. Before that time there were 

 periodical agitations about some particular kind of fishing which was said by those not 

 engaged in it to be injuring the fisheries. These agitations usually arose out of jealousies 

 between different classes of fishermen, and were founded chiefly on prejudice and 



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