CHAP, xi.] FREE FISHERIES A MISTAKE. 489 



the negligence or pointed disregard of all interests displayed 

 by others.* 



I have not in the course of this work intruded many of 

 my own theories as to fish and fishing upon the reader ; but 

 I have not been studying the subject for twelve years without 

 theorising a little, and when the proper time comes I shall 

 have a great deal more to say about the natural history of 

 our food-fishes than I have said in the present volume. In 

 the meantime I am anxious, as regards the whole of the sea 

 fisheries, to inculcate the duty of collecting more and better 

 statistics than we have ever yet obtained. 



Our great farm, the sea, is free to all too free ; there is 

 no seed or manure to provide, and no rent to pay. Every 

 adventurer who can procure a boat may go out and spoliate 

 the shoals ; he has no care for the growth or preservation of 

 animals which he has been taught to think inexhaustible. In 

 one sense it is of no consequence to a fisherman that he 

 catches codlings instead of cod ; whatever size his fish may 

 be, they yield him what he fishes for money. What if all 

 the herrings he captures be crowded with spawn ? what if 

 they be virgin fish that have never added a quota to the 

 general stock? That is all as nothing to the fisherman as 

 long as they bring him money. It is the same in all fisheries. 

 Our free unregulated fisheries are, in my humble opinion, a 

 thorough mistake. If a fisherman, say with a capital of 500 

 in boats, nets, etc., had invested the same amount of money 

 in a breeding-farm, how would he act ? Would he not earn 

 his living and increase his capital by allowing his animals to 

 breed ? and he would certainly never cut down oats or wheat 

 in a green state. But the fish-farmers do all these things, and 

 the Fishery Board stamps them with approval. We must look 

 better into these matters ; and I would crave the expenditure 

 by government of a few thousand pounds definitely to settle, 

 * From a private letter by Mr. Donald Bain. 



