THEIR ROUND OF LIFE AND LABOUR. 59 
would undoubtedly command a ready sale at remunerative 
rates. Lobsters, too, abound amid the rocks of the Irish 
seas, they are well known to commerce, but still larger 
quantities of these delicious crustaceans might we think be 
brought to market; traps for their capture are easy to 
construct, and any kind of garbage will do for bait. 
An interesting feature of fishery economy in Ireland is 
centred in what is called the “Irish reproductive loan 
fund,” by which sums of money are advanced to the 
fishermen to be repaid at a given time, the amounts re- 
ceived being again advanced to other fishermen. Much 
good has been by this means achieved. We have not space 
in which to trace the history of the fund, or to describe 
the machinery of distribution, but we may, abridging the 
information given by the inspectors in some of their annual 
reports, state that in particular instances the poor fisher- 
men who have been obliged with loans have been able to 
turn the money to excellent account in providing the 
necessary fishing gear of which they were utterly deficient. 
“Tn vast numbers of cases,” says Mr. Inspector Brady, “but 
for the loans, I believe the people on the west coast would 
have been obliged to abandon fishing altogether, and if so had 
no other resources.” The Irish fisher folk have also had 
the advantage of obtaining substantial assistance from 
another fund, namely, the money voted by the Dominion of 
Canada for the relief of distress in Ireland. This fund 
amounted to 420,500 and was placed in the hands of a 
Committee who devoted nearly £10,000 to the promotion 
of piers and the improvement of harbours, and £11,000 to 
the purchase of fishing gear and new boats and the repair- 
ing of old ones. This loan has been the means of effecting 
a great amount of good: in one locality, to which £200 
worth of nets were sent and distributed among fifty men, 
