129 



rated.* All the profits were regularly added to the fund, 

 direct pecuniary returns never having been looked for by the 

 members of the Society, the improvement of the Highlands 

 being their paramount object. 



The letters printed in the appendix to the report, from the 

 town of Wick, the chief fishing station on the east coast of 

 Scotland, the population of which increased in a few years from 

 1,500 to near 10,000 persons, [Evidence, p. 196,] exhibit the 

 fact, that beyond the mere rent of the town buildings, con- 

 siderable advantages had accrued to the surrounding country 

 from the rise of a thriving trade. The Society prudently left 

 all the minuter details connected with the prosecution of the 

 fishing business to private enterprise and care. In some places 

 an immediate stimulus was given simply and cheaply by the 

 settlement of curers of fish, and these men found it to be their 

 interest to advance requisites to the fishermen. 



The only real property now belonging to the Society is its 

 establishment, and lands, and feu-duties, at Pulteney Town, 

 and the quay at Tobermory, which was reserved at the time of 

 the sale of the Society's estate there. The Society's funds 

 vested in Government Stocks, and balance with bankers, &c., 

 may be stated in round numbers at 20,000. The annual 

 feu-duties and rents of the landed property at Fulteney Town, 

 amount to about 785.f 



It would be impracticable to estimate, with accuracy, the 

 returns, direct or indirect, which have been made to the members 

 of the British Fishery Society from their outlay. Success has 

 unquestionably attended the objects for which it was formed. 

 The Secretary to the Board of Fisheries in Scotland, writing 

 in 1848,t in deprecation of any measure of interference as to 

 the construction of boats that might check the fishing trade, 

 alludes to " the inestimable importance of the fisheries to the 

 welfare and sustenance of so poor a country as Scotland, carried 

 on as they are in its poorest and most unproductive districts ; 

 in fact, forming the only harvest for large masses of the popula- 

 tion." 



Although there are impediments arising out of the constitu- 

 tion of the Poor Law, and difficulties connected with the surren- 

 der of land and houses in Ireland, needing only to be adverted 

 to, which would operate adversely, as similar motives influence 

 the owners of landed property in every country, Irish land- 

 lords may be actuated to form a Society for the same objects. 

 That founded by the Act of 1786 was incorporated as the 

 " British Society for extending the Fisheries, and improving the 



* Statement of James Loch, esq., M.P. Report of Commission, 1636. 

 Appendix, p. 62. 



f ReportFishing Boats, Scotland, 1849, pp. 15, 26, 59. 



