FISHERY PROBLEMS 193 



while waiting for the economic transformations which 

 will select the best of them, make a radical application 

 of the protective measures which I have explained in 

 the preceding chapters, and which apply, as I have 

 already stated, to fry and young fish. As for herring, 

 cod, mackerel, sardines, sprats, and whiting, take them 

 when and where they may be found ; but give soles, 

 turbot, and brill the time to grow. They will never 

 go far from the shore ; you can always find them 

 again. 



Modern fishery, to obtain a copious and regular yield, 

 should be rapid and adaptable. It is in its power to 

 be so. The fisherman of to-morrow will undoubtedly 

 practise economy of effort, and will be rather an 

 industrial artisan than a sailor ; like a miner, armed with 

 powerful tackle and implements, he will exploit that 

 enormous mine, the fishing-grounds of the ocean. And 

 while the artisan fishers plough distant seas, who knows 

 but that some of them will not return to the coast, 

 attracted by the easy methods of the dam and the fish- 

 pond ? It would be folly to wish to empty all our 

 fishing-grounds into fishponds, however perfect ; New- 

 foundland and Iceland will always be Iceland and New- 

 foundland ; and all coasts do not lend themselves to the 

 construction of such devices. But do not let us forget 

 it fishponds present in miniature all the conditions 

 requisite to fishery. They are centres at once of con- 

 servation and production, made by man, subject to his 

 will, and therefore capable of infinite improvement. 

 Hence the artisan fisher will be comparable now to a 

 miner, now to a farmer. But the oceanic mine is 

 inexhaustible 1 And the fishponds are fields which no 

 one tills nor sows, and which, for an equal area, give a 

 profit three times as great as arable land] I 



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