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to concentrate themselves in particular localities, and I feel 

 that it ought to be our policy to try to work with the 

 tendency of trade, and not to work in opposition to it ; if 

 we find a trade endeavouring to concentrate itself in one 

 place, it would be as unwise in us to endeavour to divide 

 it into two places as to attempt that proverbially difficult 

 task of trying to make water flow up-hill. It is obvious 

 why trade tends to concentrate itself in one spot. It is 

 obviously to the convenience of buyers in a wholesale trade 

 that, when they go in the morning for their fish, they 

 should be certain on the spot to which they resort to find 

 all the fish on sale on that particular morning. In any 

 other event it must occasionally happen that the buyers 

 will go to one place, while the fish may possibly be in 

 another, and that state of things must necessarily lead to 

 a practice which, I believe, the Americans call cornering, 

 which is certainly most injurious to the interests of the 

 purchaser as well as the consumer. I think, therefore, that 

 we ought to make it an object to have one great wholesale 

 market in London, and that one great wholesale market 

 should be on the waterside. 



I do not know whether you have ever considered what 

 the requirements of a wholesale market should be. They 

 can be very briefly stated, and I will endeavour to explain 

 them to you. In the first place, there should be ample 

 accommodation afforded to all the buyers and sellers who 

 frequent the market ; in the next place, there should be 

 ample standing room for the vans which bring the fish to 

 market ; and, in the third place, there should be easy 

 access both for buyers and sellers. I should say at once 

 that if Billingsgate provides adequate accommodation, 

 which is extremely doubtful, for buyers and sellers, it is 

 lamentably deficient in the two other requirements of a 



