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wholesale market, viz., in the standing room for vans being 

 unpacked in the neighbourhood of the market, and in 

 access to and from the market. 



You will probably ask me to express some opinion 

 whether, under these circumstances, an effort should be 

 made to improve Billingsgate, or whether, on the contrary, 

 the market should be at once swept away or moved to 

 some other spot in the metropolis. Now on that point I 

 am not prepared to state an opinion. It does not seem to 

 me to be one for me to pronounce a positive opinion about. 

 The question is one mainly of expense, and must be 

 decided by the Corporation of the City of London, who are 

 the owners of the market. If the Corporation are prepared 

 to incur the great expense which is involved in doubling 

 the area of this market as it stands, and in wideninsf 

 Thames Street from end to end, then I should say by all 

 means leave Billingsgate where it is, for the very sufficient 

 reason that trade is a conservative thing, and it is very 

 difficult to move a trade from any spot where you find 

 it flourishing. But if, on the contrary, the Corporation of 

 the City of London are not prepared to incur this expendi- 

 ture, then the sooner they make up their minds to move 

 the market to some suitable place on the river-side the 

 better it will be for the fish trade, and the better for the 

 public also. These are really all the remarks I have to 

 make on this portion of the subject. 



Before I sit down I should like to make one or two 

 general remarks on the subject of fisheries. It is now 

 more than sixteen years since my connection with the 

 fisheries of this country began, and it is a little more than 

 a year since my connection with them was severed. But I 

 need hardly say I have not ceased to take an interest in the 

 fisheries of this great country. On the contrary, my lot is 



