Chapt. wvi. A C Km based on Actuals. 387 



before us. Halve, quarter, decimate, nay figures, make what 

 deductions you like, and still the food Earm is Burely large enough 

 to attract the attention of Government. That is my object 



50. Having thus scanned prospective possibilities, and not im- 

 probable possibilities either, but a calculation carefully reduced at 

 i very turn to bring it within reliable limits, 1 turn now to a 

 i dculation based on a wider range of actuals, a range taking in 



y adverse circumstance possible, and utterly excluding all 

 grounds for casting on it any suspicion of being a sanguine or 

 theoretical calculation. The same Commissioners write: "Wehave, 

 •• however, a more full return for the last three years, embracing 

 " nearly the whole line of coast from the Firth of Forth, on the 

 " North, by the Fast, South and West Coasts of England to the 

 " Solway on the West, which is of a very satisfactory character." 



This is a return of the quantity of fish forwarded by twelve 

 lines of railway in 1 S < '. 12 , 1863, 1804. The object of the Commis- 

 sioners was to know whether or not fisheries were declining from 

 over fishing, and the return showed very satisfactorily that they 

 wcii' growing rapidly. The return, though very satisfactory from 

 that point of view, is far from complete for the purpose of the 

 present enquiry, as will be shown below, and as the Commissioners 

 themselves regret in the following words: — "With the exception cf 

 " the statistics of the northern herring fishery collected by the 

 " Scotch Fishery Board, there are no means of ascertaining, even 

 " approximately, the annual yield of fish on the coasts of the 

 " United Kingdom." Incomplete, and evidently far below the 

 truth, though they are, I take the figures. The return of these 

 twelve lines foi the last year (1864) was 1:22,381 tons of fish 

 ■d inland The distance of tliis line from Solway to Firth of 

 Forth, taken in the same way as I have taken it for India, is, I find, 

 1,G9G miles. The return of 122,381 tons being divided by 1,G96 

 miles, gives 7215 tons per lineal mile of coast. Taking the coast 

 of India and British Hannah at 4.G11 miles, and multiplying it by 

 72*15 tons, we have a yield of 332,683 tons. This is a ver] 

 different conclusion certainly from the 690,543,360 tons at which 

 we arrived before. But the larger calculation represented the total 

 harvest which the sea is seemingly capable of yielding. The minor 

 calculation represents the equivalent to the actual yielded in 



England for transport inland by rail, alter deducting — (1) all not 



Tilt It ID IV IM'IV 2 C 2 



