224 Dr. Mac Culloch on the Herring. 



merchants will make and sell bad fish ; to which the obvious 

 answer is this, this would be against their interests, as they would 

 soon have no buyers. 



But to pass from this. There has been, under these various 

 circumstances, a progressive increase in the quantity taken ; while 

 from 1816 to 1820, beyond which this sketch does not extend, the 

 quantity cured according to the regulations, and therefore entitled 

 to the full bounty, has also progressively increased. But there is 

 another important cause here implicated. The great increase has 

 not arisen from the extension of the Buss, or deep sea fishery, but 

 from that of the boat fishery. This is carried on by the small far- 

 mers and fishermen who reside on the sea-shores, who sell to the 

 busses, which thus find it a more profitable trade to buy from 

 them than to fish for themselves. Thus far our fishery differs from 

 that of the Dutch, which was carried on by large sloops or herring 

 busses in the deep sea. Thus the main cause of the increase is 

 not to be sought in the acts of parliament and regulations only, 

 nor exclusively in the superabundance of capital. It has been one 

 chief result of the alterations in the system of Highland farming, 

 by which, in consequence of the allotment of the interior tracts to 

 sheep, the people have migrated to the sea-shores as occupiers of 

 fishing crofts. While this mode of fishing has been found the most 

 profitable, in a commercial view, it has also produced the ad- 

 vantage of finding employment for the formerly unoccupied people 

 of the Highlands, and has been, in fact, one of the great but over- 

 looked benefits, which has flowed from a system against which 

 such a senseless and protracted clamour has been raised. 



It is, perhaps, time to reflect whether bounties can any longer 

 be necessary. The solution of this question must be sought in the 

 preceding facts. Circumstances have changed. Capital is now 

 seeking employment. So is Highland industry ; so is industry in 

 general. If the bounties force a larger fishery than finds a vent, 

 they are no longer beneficial ; they cannot at least be necessary. 

 But I need not dwell on this part of the present subject. I shall, 

 therefore, pass over all that relates to the present legislative regu- 

 lations, whether as these relate to salt, or to any thing else, for the 



