THE MARKET 317 



should be paid out of the city budget. Why should the 

 cost of their remuneration be charged to the sellers of 

 fish ? There is also a supplementary tax in disguise, all 

 the more irregular in that by the terms of the law of 

 December 24, 1896, the right to sell products caught or 

 gathered by naval inscripts does not carry with it liability 

 to personal taxation or payment of any kind whatever." 

 The crews employed by the shipowners are, as a matter 

 of fact, condemned to pay an annual tax amounting to 

 not less than 480 or ^600 a year for each steam trawler, 

 which represents an annual tax of some ^5 per man. As 

 for the specific tax of 2jd. per kilo, it is absolutely prohibi- 

 tive if imposed on fish of inferior quality, such as gurnards, 

 herring, and dogfish, the price of which often falls as low 

 as a halfpenny a pound. The octroi at this price amounts 

 to 400 per cent, of the value of the goods. Now the 

 general decree of 1870 enacts that "salt cod, stock-fish and 

 salt herring cannot be taxed. This, with the double 

 object of stimulating French fisheries and of leaving un- 

 taxed all kinds of food consumed especially by the lower 

 classes." These exaggerated tariffs are therefore contrary 

 to the spirit of the law. 



There is another objection upon which M. Dero, ship- 

 owner of Havre, has particularly insisted : " The enor- 

 mous figure of the tax imposed upon direct sale virtually 

 forces the producer, especially when his stock is large, 

 to get rid of his fish from the tables of the city auction. 

 It is only too evident that in offering one the choice of 

 paying a duty of 8 per cent, on fish sold by auction or 

 a duty of 125 per cent, to 400 per cent, on fish sold 

 by personal contact, the city is establishing an absolute 

 monopoly to the profit of the public market. To prevent 

 the shipowner or the merchant from plying his trade under 

 the conditions most convenient to him, and to force him 



