388 A Plea for Sea Fisheries. C'hait. xxvi. 



caught for want of fishing stations along the whole coast, for 

 want of sufficient and good implements of capture, from the 

 presence of non-fertile acres, from stress of weather ; (2) all caught 

 by the French and Dutch boats and taken away; (3) all taken 



inland to intervening towns by cart or any means other than rail- 

 ways ; (1 all consumed on the coasts; (5) all exported in salt to 

 foreign countries; and (6) all used as manure. 



51. Thus, it will be seen, that this return, however satisfactoi . 

 and sufficient for the enquiry prosecuted by the Commissioners, is 

 glaringly incomplete for the present purpose. It is obviously very 

 far from representing the whole actual take of fish, which is what 

 is here wanted. It is palpably much within the mark. In never- 

 theless accepting these figures just for the sake of the argument, it 

 must he admitted that they are so accepted only in lieu of any 

 more approximate data, and that they are well beyond any further 

 depreciation. 



52. If even this calculation, alter all these deductions, be 

 applied as a parallel to the average of the Madras Presidency, 

 which is considered safe, then we have ."..'li'.iis:; tons of fish against 

 1,287,077 tons of rice, which is a little more than one-fourth ; or, 

 if the comparative nutriment of the two sorts of food is taken, 

 more than one half. This 332,683 tons of fish, he it remembered, 

 is all for inland carriage by rail, and is equal to more than half of 

 the amount of rice carried inland by the Madras Railway during 

 the Famine pressure of 1877. From 17th July, 1877, to 31st 

 December, 1877, 585,233 tons of grain, almost without exception 

 lire, if, indeed, it was not all rice, was the amount carried inland 

 from Madras. If the relative nourishment of this 332,683 tons of fish 

 he considered, it is the equivalent to Si'.l,707 tons of rice, or more 

 than all that was carried by rail from Madras, more by 246,474 

 tons of grain. Who will say that such an additional supply of 

 food for the country would not have saved many lives. At H lbs. 

 ol -lain per man per diem, it would have sufficed for 1,380,018 

 working men for a year ; or if it he allowed that fish is 2-J times 

 as nourishing as rice, for 3,450,043 working men for a year — say, 

 lor nearly three and a-half millions for a twelvemonth. 



53. 1 would wish 1 1 ' ■ x t to turn to the estuaries, but am deficient 

 in definite proof of fertility, and utterly at a lo>s for data of their 

 area. As regards fertility, I should point for analogy to the salmon 



