Chart, xxvi. Profitable. 379 



•■ chances of profit than our sea fisheries, and no object of greater 

 " utility could be Darned than the development of enterprise, skill, 

 ■■ and mechanical ingenuity, which might be elicited by the 

 riodical exhibitions and publications of an influential society, 

 1 specially devoted to the British fisheries." 



20. These are the same conclusions in the main as I shall draw 

 hereafter; but I quote the Commissioners for conclusions as well 

 as facta, for deductions as well as data, in order that I may gain for 

 my subject the superior weight of such authority. 



21. On this basis I pass on to apply the data and the conclu- 

 sions as closely as I can to our Indian position. To apply them 

 exactly is not possible, for they are not sufficiently full and 

 accurate. If there were data that the sea fisheries of England 

 yielded so much on an average per lineal mile of shore, the calcu- 

 lation could be readily transferred with some degree of accuracy to 

 India. If there were even information as to the whole take of sea 

 fish in England there would be no great difficulty in drawing a 

 parallel. But there is not. The Commissioners themselves, in 

 their report for 1866, deplore the deficiency and suggest means of 

 supplying it. Whether this has since been done I have at command 

 no means of knowing. They write: "With the exception of the 

 " statistics of the northern herring fishery collected by the Scotch 

 " Fishery Board, there are no means of ascertaining even approxi- 

 " mately the annual yield of fish on the coasts of the United 

 " Kingdom. The only facts we have been able to obtain were returns 

 " of the fish traffic on several of the great lines of railway, by which 

 " the tish is transported from the fishing ports to the markets." 



22. Then there are twelve lines of rail carrying, in 1 864, 122,813 

 tons of fish. 



23. We have elsewhere, in the same report, the statement that 

 at Scarborough, so plentiful were the herrings sometimes, that 

 from 700 to 800 tons were said to be sent thence into the interior 

 of the country by railway inasingle day. This.it will be observed, 

 was over and above the local consumption, and Scarborough would 

 surely eat more fish in a day than Madras. This, too, was seem- 

 Lngly over and above the takes of the French and Dutch boats. 

 And this represents between a half and a third of the weight of 

 grain carried daily by rail from Madras to the interior in the time 

 of (amine; the average carried from L 7th February, 1877, to the 



