quantities of tinned fish as food, which I cannot find any 

 trace of in the Board of Trade returns. I imagine they 

 are included under the general term of "Meat preserved 

 otherwise than by salting." With respect to the export of 

 fish, the exports consist also chiefly of salt fish, the great 

 staple of export being Scotch herrings. I believe some 

 90,000 tons of Scotch herrings are sent annually to Ger- 

 many and Russia. There is, however, a considerable 

 export trade of other fish. For instance, large quantities 

 of pilchards are exported from Cornwall ; and a consider- 

 able amount of fresh fish is sent to the great continental 

 markets. The question of fish transport has, I need hardly 

 add, a close connection with these exports. 



After these very few observations on the export trade, 

 I should like to deal with the much larger question of 

 the internal trade in fish. I see that an illustrious 

 Duke, in a paper read at one of these Conferences, 

 has estimated the gross take of fish in British waters at 

 615,000 tons a year. I should like here to bear my 

 testimony to the extreme importance of the figures which 

 the Duke of Edinburgh has given in that paper. His 

 is the first attempt, so far as I am aware, to estimate ap- 

 proximately the amount of fish taken by fishermen in this 

 country ; and I can only express a hope that the example 

 which he has set will be followed by his successors, and 

 that as one Admiral Superintendent of Naval Reserves has 

 shown that the coast-guard may be utilised for obtaining 

 important information of this kind, the Government of 

 this country will take care that the coast-guard will be 

 regularly employed to obtain similar information. Now 

 with respect to this 615,000 tons of fish, I find if we add 

 to it the 45,000 tons which are imported from abroad, 

 and if, on the other hand, we subtract from it the 1 10,000 



