THE PROFIT 



265 



must not be surprised even to-day to see numerous 

 sailing boats in our fishing ports. The merchant marine 

 of to-day offers a similar spectacle ; in 1907 the gross 

 tonnage of steamers rose to 32,245,000 tons, while that of 

 sailing vessels amounted hardly to 7,000,000 tons. What, 

 one may naturally ask, is the ratio of steam and sails in 

 the case of fishing boats ? 



A detailed examination of the figures relating to Great 

 Britain and France is extremely suggestive : but in 

 order not to confuse our inquiry we will consider only 

 the year 1905, which is almost perfectly typical. Here 

 is the approximate situation of the French and British 

 fisheries on January i, 1906 : 



We see that France has only one-tenth as many 

 steamers as Great Britain, but 25 times as many sailing 

 vessels engaged in her fisheries. I include sailing vessels 

 of all tonnages the " Norwegians " of Honfleur, the 

 picoteux of Havre, as well as the tunny-fishers of Groix. 

 In other words, France has i steamer to 125 sailing 

 vessels, and England i steamer to 5 sailing vessels. 

 Finally, for an almost equal number of fishermen and a 

 given number of steamers, France possesses fifteen times 

 more sailing vessels than England. In the result, England 

 produces five times as much as France. We may there- 

 fore arrive at the following formula, showing that 200 

 groups composed each of i steamer and 125 sailing vessels 

 of all tonnages catch only one-fifth as many fish as 2,000 



