189 



ing 47 widows, and 161 children, totally unprovided for ' a calamity 

 without precedent in the annals of the British Fisheries.' 



The Report observes that it must be remembered the loss of the 

 boats, <fec., does not fall upon fish-curers or merchants, but upon the 

 poor fishermen alone, many, if not most of whom, are rendered desti- 

 tute by it. Harbour accommodation appears to be insufficient, either 

 in capacity or accessibility at low water, to the large fleets that resort 

 there as many as 800 belonging to the town of Wick alone. Parlia- 

 ment has since voted a sum of 6,000 for the repair of one of these 

 safety harbours. 



The extent to which great local improvements have been stimulated, 

 by the small sum annually allotted to piers and harbours in Scotland, 

 is noticed. The following extracts are taken from the Report : 



" In reviewing the evidence adduced on the present Inquiry, it can- 

 not fail to strike the most cursory observer, that the want of good 

 harbours, accessible at all times, is the grand cause of the loss of life and 

 property, and the increased risk connected with our Fisheries. It is not 

 the construction of two or more large central harbours of refuge (as has 

 been suggested) that is wanted; but a general deepening and improve- 

 ment of all the existing harbours and rivers, along the whole eastern 

 coast of Scotland. Nor would the improvements of these harbours be 

 attended with any very considerable outlay. It is scarcely credible 

 that the small sum of 2,500 a-year, which Parliament has devoted to 

 building harbours and piers in Scotland, for the last few years, should 

 have given so great a stimulus to important local improvements as 

 those grants are found to have done. But they are quite inadequate 

 to grapple in earnest with the wants which exist. Four times their 

 amount, or 10,000 a-year for a few years, steadily laid out on piers 

 and harbours, would do much to remedy the want, and to place the 

 fishermen of the east of Scotland on a par with those of more favoured 

 coasts. It would be an act of mercy to a race of hardy, industrious, 

 frugal men to 10,000 fishermen of one of the poorest and most unpro- 

 ductive districts of Scotland, who are not at sea as occasional passers- 

 by, but are constantly hovering off the coast in pursuit of their calling, 

 for three months together, exposed to the suddenness and violence of 

 North Sea gales, such as that of August, 1845, and again in August, 

 1848, without the common shelter that all mariners are entitled to look 

 for in the hour of need. 



"The value and importance of the Fisheries, in several points of 

 view, but especially as an inexhaustible source of abundant and nutri- 

 tious food, seem hardly to have been sufficiently considered. By the 

 Report of the Commissioners for the year 1848, it will be seen that the 

 quantity of herrings cured during that period, was 644,368 barrels; 

 besides which, the quantity taken and sold for immediate consumption, 

 was 354,977 barrels, making the total produce of the British herring 

 fisheries for the year to amount to 999,345 barrels, in value probably 

 about one million sterling. During the same period, it appears that 

 364,951 cwts. of cod and ling were taken. The boats employed were 

 15,062, manned by 60,346 fishermen and boys, and the whole numbers 

 of persons engaged in curing the fish, &c., was 97,477. The tonnage 

 of vessels employed in conveying salt, and in exporting herrings, was 

 66,214 tons, and the total value of boats, nets, and lines, amounted to 



