POTENTIALITIES. 313 



many Queensland species, in connection with the sugar-cane and other coastal agricultural crops. 

 From the livers of all these fish there is, finally, expressible various specific qualities of oil, which 

 command a high price in the market. It need scarcely be mentioned that, concurrently with 

 the destruction and commercial utilisation of the rapacious members of the shark tribe, material 

 protection would be given to all the other more important fisheries. 



It is difficult, in face of the substantial evidence forthcoming, to comprehend how it is 

 that the colony does not draw more extensively on her indigenous waters for food supply, 

 or why, with so abundant and varied a fish-fauna, so much fish should be imported. The 

 true solution of this problem is doubtless, to a very considerable extent, bound up with the 

 labour question ; the wages earned by workers in every industrial sphere being, at present, 

 so abnormally high, as to render it scarcely possible for them to compete with the cured or 

 otherwise conserved fish-industries centred in cheap labour districts. That there is a grow- 

 ing tendency, however, for matters to rectify themselves in this respect is apparent in many 

 directions ; one of the most suggestive signs of the times being the numbers of the unemployed 

 that enrol themselves for Government labour, in increasing rather than in diminishing ratio, 

 in almost every Australian city. So soon as the labour equilibrium shall be more nearly 

 reached, abundant employment should be forthcoming, in association with the suggested fish- 

 ing industries. 



The fishing industries of Queensland, so far as they relate to the fresh fish supplies 

 of the larger centres of population, are practically in their infancy. Even Brisbane, the capital, 

 does not }'et possess a localised fish-market, while the fish placed at the disposal of the 

 Brisbane public are entirely limited to what are termed " long-shore " — varieties taken with the 

 seine, and represented mainly, so far as bulk is concerned, by various species of grey mullets. 

 Long-line fishing, and fishing with trawl, trammel, drift or set nets, are altogether unknown. Even 

 ordinar}' hand-line fishing for the public supply is altogether neglected, schnapper and the many 

 other fine sea-breams and perches, that abound just outside Moreton Bay, being left entirely 

 to the attention of amateur fishing parties. The explanation of this anomaly is that, there being 

 no central market where the fish can be sold by healthy competitive auction, all supplies are 

 monopolised by a small ring of salesmen, who give one fixed price, averaging 12s. per bushel- 

 basket, for every description of fish. There is, consequently, no inducement to the fishermen to 

 go further a-field for the capture of the choice varieties of fish, or to resort to any other than 

 the simplest and most expeditious methods of capture. So soon as the long-contemplated, well- 

 appointed fish-market becomes a substantial reality, the present conditions of the public fish- 

 supply will undoubtedly be vastly improved, and a far more lucrative remuneration will be 

 thrown open to the working fisherman. 



At several of the coastal townships of the northern district, such as Townsville, Cairns, and 

 Cooktown, the Indo-Malay method of capturing fish in enclosed fish-weirs, or pounds, is success- 



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