6 THE SALMON FISHERIES. 
England and Wales has, for the last ten years, exceeded 
an average of £7,000, and in Ireland has exceeded £9,000 
a year in the same period. So that we arrive at the 
general result that, with 22,000 net fishermen and 10,000 
anglers in the United Kingdom, 13,000 of the former, and 
5,000 of the latter thought it worth while to pay between 
them £16,000 for a mere licence to fish for salmon; the 
remaining 9,000 net fishermen and 5,000 anglers in Scot- 
land being exempt from duty. When it is remembered 
that these licences are available over only the limited area 
of the district in which they are issued, the actual value of 
the fisheries will be still more apparent. 
The value of the nets, boats, and other gear of the 
22,000 net fishermen can hardly be estimated at less than 
#20 per man, which would give a capital of £440,000 
invested in the commercial fisheries, while the 10,000 rods 
at only £1 a-piece would add another £10,000 on account 
of capital invested in the rod fisheries. The £16,000 paid 
annually in licence duty, capitalised at only ten years’ 
purchase, would add £160,000, and would bring up the 
total estimated capital invested in the salmon fisheries 
of the United Kingdom to 4610,000. Either this is an 
excessive under-estimate, or salmon fishing must be a very 
profitable industry ; for, if the 22,000 net fishermen realised 
only £1 a week each for half the year, their earnings from 
this industry would amount to £572,000 a year. But 
last year over 50,000 salmon, worth, at only Ios. each, 
425,000, were taken by about 550 net fishermen in the 
Tyne alone, or an average of nearly 35s. as the weekly 
earnings of each man for twenty-six weeks, so that the 
above estimate of #1 a week is well within the mark. To 
estimate the value of the catch of salmon by anglers it is 
fair to credit each rod with at least three salmon in the 
