BOHUSLAN HERRING- FISHERIES. 237 



1774 stationed on this coast. For settling difficulties among the fisher- 

 men an enlarged and improved code of " port regulations " had been 

 published, according to which certain judicial and police powers were 

 entrusted to some of the fishermen, but all this did not improve the 

 moral character of the population. The coast of Bohusliln gradually 

 became a sort of vast poor-house, all sorts of homeless and shiftless peo- 

 ple congregating there in addition to those who through their debauch- 

 eries had lost all they had earned during the fishing-season. Since all 

 the better class left Bohusliin every year at the close of the fishing-sea- 

 son, and finally for good, when the fisheries came to a close, and took all 

 their earnings with them, Bohusliin reaped all the evil consequences of 

 the fisheries without enjoying any of their benefits. The poverty and 

 misery on our coast when the fisheries totally ceased in 1808 actually 

 beggars description. But it was not only the coast which suffered ; the 

 agricultural interests of the province had been totally neglected from 

 want of men willing to work on farms and from the general degeneracy 

 of the times. Strange to say, the enormous fortunes which had been 

 made and remained in the hands of a few, disappeared quickly or passed 

 into other and worthier hands. It is not to be wondered at that under 

 these circumstances large herring-fisheries, such as those of the eight- 

 eenth century, began gradually to be considered as a curse rather than 

 as a blessing, which opinion was, among others, expressed by the his- 

 torian of Bohusliin, Axel Emanuel Holmherg,'^*^ and by its zealous and 

 highly-honored governor. Count C. G. Lovenlijelm.'" It must be granted, 

 however, that all the evil consequences of great herring-fisheries might 

 be avoided, or at least greatly diminished, by proper precautions, and 

 that such fisheries, if properly managed, might greatly further the ma- 

 terial development of Bohusliin.^^ Regarding the last great fisheries it 

 must be said that their evil consequences are chiefly to be ascribed to 

 wrong management on the part of the authorities, who sacrificed the 

 interests of the fishermen, the workingmen, the coast, and the whole 

 province to those of a few large exporters. This mistake was caused, 

 to a great extent, by the wrong economical principles prevailing in those 

 times and by the want of education and enlightenment among our coast 

 population. Xo petitions were, therefore, ever made to the government 

 authorities or to the Parliament to remedy existing evils, and no improve- 

 ment could, therefore, ever be looked for. 



The great changes for the better which, during the last thirty or forty 

 years, have raised both the rural and the coast population of Bohusliin 

 to a very respectable height of intelligence and well-being, may serve 

 to indicate the way which should be followed if great herring-fisheries 



« Holmberg, "Bohiisl. hist, och besh:," II, p. 91-94 : 2d edition, I, p. 286-288. 



"' Gutcbor(j's och Bohusldns Kgl. MushdUmngs-Salhkaps Eandlingar [Reports of the 

 Economical Society of Gotteuburg and Bohusliin], for 1847, Gottenbm-g, 1848, p. 27-28. 



■•* Concerning the hopes of a return of the great herring-fisheries see the author's 

 article in the "Gotehorgsposten," 1876, No. 216, and in the Bohusldns Tidnimg, 1876, No. 77. 



