222 SPOLIA ZEYLANIOA. 



It is not surprising, therefore, to find that when the affairs of the 

 Company became so critical, the misfortunes which were gathering 

 fast were directly attributed to the failure of the scientific work. 



The non-expert may be pardoned for taking this most amazing 

 view of the situation when Dr. Lyster Jameson, himself a biologist 

 and a competent authority on pearl-fishmg matters, discusses 

 what he terms the " failure of the biological work on Ceylon pearl 

 fisheries."* Both the title and the context of this Paper reveals 

 Dr. Jameson's opinion that the scientific work has proved a failure, 

 although certain passages in his Paper show that, unhke his fellow - 

 shareholders, he does not believe that this " failure" is responsible 

 for the misfortune which attended the Company's enterprises. On 

 page 15 of his Paper, in discussing the terms of agreement between 

 Government and the Company, he says " the Company was pledged 

 to pay in annual expenses on the minimum scale more than twice, 

 and on the maximum scale about three times, the probable average 

 return," and further on he continues : " Apphed Biology had a 

 colossal task placed before it to make up this difference, and in 

 addition to pay dividends on a capital of £165,000." In concluding 

 his Paper, he writes as follows : " Let me say here that I do not 

 think anj^ scientific man who has seriously studied the pearl and 

 mother-of-pearl fisheries question from an economic standpoint 

 could dare to hope that a Company which started loaded with the 

 heavy obligations which the Ceylon Company of Pearl Fishers 

 accepted could within a few years have been made with a paying 

 concern by biological science." 



The Company were perfectly aAvare of the risk they ran in taking 

 the lease, and it is astonishing that men of acute business acumen 

 should have taken such a sanguine view of scientific operations 

 which had only been in progress four years as to convince themselves 

 that the intermittent fisheries, which had characterized the banks for 

 thousands of years, should give place so soon to yearly fisheries. 

 If the Chairman of the Company had placed the blame for the 

 unenviable outcome of their schemes at the doors of those business 

 men who negotiated the lease and accepted such heavy responsi- 

 bilities, instead of ascribing the failure to the scientific experts , whose 

 greatest misfortune was that they had to conduct their operations 

 in connection with a heavily burdened commercial enterprise, he 

 would have placed the matter in a more reasonable light. 



* Journal of Economic Biology, Volume VII., Part I., February, 1912. 



