9 



nations in fishery matters ; it was however the special fisheries exhi- 

 bitions of Berlin, 1880, and London, 1883, that fully enlightened the 

 nation. In 1880 one of the delegates to Berlin was Professor Mat- 

 subdra, the present learned and experienced Principal of the Imperial 

 Fisheries Training Institution, and the knowledge he gained was 

 instrumental to progress in a high degree, as will presently be seen. 

 It was at these exhibitions and through the studies which accompanied 

 them, that Japauese delegates becaine acquainted with modern 

 processes in preserving and canning fish, in artificial fertilisation and 

 hatching, and with classes of boats and gear to which they had 

 hitherto been strangers; this knowledge they brought to Japan and, 

 sometimes with and sometimes without the aid of Government, they 

 put this knowledge into practice. Since that time Japan has regularly 

 taken part both as exhibitor and student in the various exhibitions, 

 ending with the present international Exposition at Milan. The 

 emissaries and students however are always everywhere ; students and 

 others were sent to America, and of course elsewhere, for practical 

 training in the various branches of the industry and brought back 

 either complete plans of all necessary buildings and plant or the plant 

 itself; ^-.c/., about 20 years ago the salmon rivers of Hokkaido were 

 being depleted by over-fishing, whereupon a Government official was 

 sent to the United States to learn their methods of salmon hatching 

 with the result that on his report a hatchery was established in 1888 

 which is now only one of 18 salmon hatcheries in the empire, most of 

 them being private property but receiving grants in-aid ; the first 

 canning plant was bought by Government delegates at the exhibition 

 of 1880 and was utilised and copied at home. In the register of 

 graduates from the Imperial Fisheries Institution it is recorded that 

 many of the graduates since 1893 are studying abroad either as 

 private students, or as the agents of associations, or with Government 

 scholarships. In a single number of the Journal of the Japan Fisheries 

 Society, I note that Professor Matsubdra, a councillor of the society 

 and Mr. K. Ito, a fishery expert, had just returned from the Interna- 

 tional Fisheries exhibitions in St. Petersburg, 1902, whither they had 

 been sent by Government, that Mr. 0. Kajikawa was just starting on 

 a Government mission to inspect the fisheries in French India (Cochin- 

 China ?) and China, and that the Honorai-y Secretary of the Society 

 had just returned from a visit in a warship to an island 1,000 miles from 

 Tokyo Bay, which it was considered might be a convenient basis for 

 Japanese fisheries on the high seas. At this moment a Government 

 fisheries officer is engaged in a complete investigation of European 

 fisheries, having spent 1906 in the British Isles while 1907 is to be 

 spent in Europe ; at Yarmouth I found a Japanese expert who had 

 been working for two years at every branch of the fisheries there, and 

 these are but individual instances that happen to be known to myself, 



