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no influence; only ignorance of its low prices seems to play any great part on 
our market; this state of affairs might easily be altered. To favour our market 
practically nothing has been done from the Danish side in the way of duties. 
The desire to purchase on the part of the public has been reduced considerably 
since the seventies; the extremely high prices of our home oysters, which with the 
help of the middlemen also influence the price of the originally cheap, foreign 
oysters, have broken off the general public from eating oysters. In earlier times 
when the oysters were bought for about a penny each the oyster-eating public 
was much larger and there were then oyster cellars in Copenhagen. Now hut few 
people eat oysters and for these money is of no consequence; the price is now at 
least 27/,d each. The result is that but few oysters are eaten or fished. The 
productivity of the Lim Fjord is not utilized to anything like the extent it could 
and should be. I shall here leave out of consideration the import duties and the 
foreign market, as I believe that at the present they are by no means so impor- 
tant for us as the two other conditions, the desire to purchase on the part of the 
public and the exploitation of the stock of oysters in the Lim Fjord; both of 
these should be increased and in this way the State would gain and be certain 
of holding its own against all foreign competition. One result of a more intensive 
fishery would be cheaper prices owing to the larger numbers of oysters on the 
market, but the total value would only be increased if at the same time the desire 
to purchase increased. Whether this will increase quickly or slowly is not easy 
to determine, and it will therefore not be possible for a contractor to be so certain 
of his tender in the first years as later, when the matter has again come into 
order, and it is therefore a question whether the State should not itself in the 
first years undertake to carry on the oyster fishery even for some years after the 
present compact runs out in 1910. The State takes some risk in doing so, but 
no one is in a better position to do so; and the State would thus win experience 
both with regard to the right size of oysters that should be fished, and of the 
numbers that might be oltained yearly. The State has always the freedom namely 
to make experiments without binding itself to any agreement for a number of 
years, as the contractors must do. If the fishery paid better than now the State 
would naturally reap the advantage; but the most important matter is that we 
should in this way obtain a solid basis of knowledge for the judgment of the 
matter. My plan would be that the State should have small steam-boats, such as 
are used in Holland for this purpose, which could dredge up the oysters espec- 
ially im the autumn so long as there was open water, and either at once or 
gradually get the stock in hand sold by auction at the Lim Fjord and in Copen- 
hagen. Motor boats might also be used perhaps in the shallower waters and pole- 
dredging might be carried on on as large a scale as possible. Lastly, experiments might 
easily be made in transplanting oysters from shallow to deep water and on the 
whole experiments for a rational increase of the stock; if the State will mot make 
the first of these experiments, they will scarcely ever be made; that at least may 
be learnt from the previous history. 
If however the decision is made to let out the fisheries again, then there 
js no doubt that the method of payment for each single oyster taken (now over 
3 farthings) must be given up; a sum should be given for permission to fish for 
