480 METHUEN ON THE WHITE-FISHERIES. [CHAP. xi. 



" if fostered and properly fished, a national source of wealth of 

 more importance and value than the gold-mines of Australia, 

 because the gold mines are exhaustible ; but the living, pro- 

 pagating, self-cultivating gift of God is inexhaustible, if 

 rightly fished by man, to whom they are given for food. It is 

 evident anything God gives is ripe and fit for food. * Have 

 dominion/ not destruction, was the command. Any farmer 

 cutting his ripe clover grass would not only be reckoned 

 mad, but would, in fact, be so, were he to tear up the roots 

 along with the clover, under the idea that he was thus obtaining 

 more food for his cattle, and then wondering why he had no 

 second crop to cut. His cattle would starve, himself and 

 family be beggared, and turned out of their farm as im- 

 provident and destructive, who not only beggared themselves, 

 but to the extent of their power impoverished the people by 

 destroying the resources of their country. The farmer who thus 

 destroys the hopes of a rising crop by injudicious farming is 

 not only his own enemy, but the enemy of his country as 

 well." Such evidence could be multiplied to any extent if it 

 were necessary, but I feel that quite enough has been said to 

 prove the point. It is a point I have no doubt upon what- 

 ever, and persons who have studied the question are alarmed, 

 and say it is no use blinking the matter any longer that 

 the demand for fish as an article of food is not only begin- 

 ning to exceed the supply, but that the supply obtained, 

 combined with waste of spawn and other causes, is beginning 

 to exceed the breeding power of the fish. In the olden time, 

 when people only caught to supply individual wants, fish were 

 plentiful, in the sense that no scarcity was ever experienced, 

 and the shoals of sea-fish, it was thought at one time, would 

 never diminish ; but since the traffic became a commercial 

 speculation the question has assumed a totally different as- 

 pect, and a sufficient quantity cannot now be obtained. Who 

 ever hears now of monster turbot being taken by the trawlers ? 



