320 SEA FISHERIES 



Remember this : part of the commissions and tips 

 paid to the market porters returns to the coffers of the 

 city, since these municipal servants buy their posts or pay 

 in their makings. These are also, in a certain sense, 

 taxes in disguise. In a word, the municipalities absorb 

 at least a FOURTH PART of the earnings of the shipowners 

 and fishermen. It would be better at once if the munici- 

 palities were to post up a placard of this sort about the 

 streets : " The eating of fish is forbidden. Any infraction 

 of this regulation will be punished by means of a fine," 

 and a gendarme should be stationed by each placard. 



IV 



Fish has an evil time of it in France. Scarcely has 

 it escaped the steely claws of the tax-collectors when 

 it falls into those of the middlemen. 



There are at least two middlemen between the pro- 

 ducer and the consumer : the fish-salesman and the 

 retail shopkeeper, who, by extracting obviously legitimate 

 profits from their transactions, increase the price paid 

 by the consumer. For example, supposing that whiting 

 is being sold in the Paris markets at yd. the kilo (about 

 3d. the pound), the retail merchant will charge as much 

 as is. yd., or an augmentation of 183 per cent. And the 

 consumer does not profit even when the market prices 

 are low in the ports. As the author of certain anony- 

 mous articles which appeared in the Nouvelliste of 

 Lorient remarked, "Experience proves that the fall in 

 retail prices is very far from being in proportion to the 

 fall in wholesale prices. As the retail merchants find 

 it to their interest to make a given profit, no matter 

 how small the sales, there is a sort of tacit understanding 

 among them which sets a limit to any reduction of prices. 

 We see the same thing in the case of wine ; in spite of 



