VALUE OF FISHERIES 51 



and supply a much greater quantity of 

 food. When one thinks of the huge 

 quantities of good wholesome food swim- 

 ming in the waters adjacent to the British 

 Isles, surely los. an acre is a conser- 

 vative estimate of the possible annual 

 production of these areas : and yet this 

 valuable source of food supply is re- 

 ceiving hardly any attention from our 

 Government. 



Taking an annual output of 90,000,000 

 as being not only possible but highly prob- 

 able as soon as peace comes, we get, if 

 capitalized on a twenty years' purchase 

 value, the sum of 1,800,000,000, or 

 9, 75. 6d. per acre, as being the capital 

 value of the fisheries in these northern 

 seas. 



When in 1872 the Challenger left Ports- 

 mouth on its epoch-making expedition 

 our fisheries, other than for herring, were 

 quite unimportant and confined to the 

 belts and estuaries of water adjacent to the 

 East and South Coast. The steam trawler 

 was unknown, and the possibilities of fishery 

 development were insufficient to make 

 quantitative investigation of edible fish of 



