179 



an interval has elapsed, marked by a reaction, consequent on the previous 

 stimulation, and by a languor in the so-favoured branch of industry, 

 which has called forth the present Commission. 



" In retracing the facts spread through a period of more than two 

 centuries; the reader cannot but be struck with the repeated failures 

 of successive efforts to create a domestic fishery, both in Great Britain 

 and in Ireland. By some, these are attributed to errors of manage- 

 ment, and to a premature abandonment of the measures of encourage- 

 ment; and the averment perhaps maybe partly true; but it is im- 

 possible to overlook the fact, that amidst all the efforts of Government, 

 and the popular enthusiasm in favour of fisheries, they have not been 

 a favourite speculation with capitalists, so that mercantile enterprise 

 has been far from going hand in hand with administrative liberality. 

 To this statement the Scotch Fishery alone affords an exception; 

 what inference should be drawn either from the rule or from its ex- 

 ception, the reader will determine for himself; but it does not seem 

 too much to affirm on experience of the past, that whatever value to 

 individuals may be set on any assistance which Government may here- 

 after think right to afford the fishermen, through any better-directed 

 system of encouragement, the trade must still eventually stand or fall 

 by the spontaneous efforts of the parties interested, and the stimulus of 

 remunerating markets." 



XL 



EXTRACT from the SIXTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT of the COMMIS- 

 SIONERS of PUBLIC WORKS. 



GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. No branch of the industrial resources of 

 Ireland suffered more severely, in the first instance, from the famine 

 and distress of the years 1846-1847 than the Fisheries, both deep sea 

 and inland. This anomaly is the more remarkable where their great 

 capability of productiveness was so well known, and where, in the 

 natural order of things, a people curtailed in the supply of the fruits of 

 the land, might have been expected to avail themselves of the bounti- 

 ful supplies of food which the surrounding sea afforded. Yet it is a 

 fact that, in the autumn of 1846, when the impending famine was cer- 

 tain, and when deaths from starvation had already occurred, supplies 

 of fish, the most abundant which had been known for years, existed on 

 many parts of the coast, and that on parts of the southern and western 

 coasts, large quantities of fish were allowed to rot on the shore, or were 

 spread on the adjacent fields for manure. 



This extraordinary state of things resulted partly from a prejudice 

 against the use of fish as a dietary, without potatoes, partly from the 

 utter prostration and distress which the want of food produced, (and 

 which compelled the coast population to part with their boats, tackle, 

 &c., as well as every other implement or means of earning a livelihood 

 for food, to maintain their very existence,) but mainly from the fact, 

 that the fisheries of this country, however valuable or important, were 

 not fixed on the solid basis of an established trade, nor were followed 

 or maintained as a real commercial undertaking for the profit which 

 they would directly yield. 



N 2 



