CHAP. x.j CO-OPERATION AMONG THE FISHERS. 441 



operatives in a similar financial position to these Buckhaven 

 men ; in fact, our fishermen have been practising the plan of 

 co-operation for years without knowing it, and without making 

 it known. The co-operative system seems to prevail among 

 the English fisher-folk as well. At Filey, on the Yorkshire 

 coast, many of the large fishing yawls these vessels average 

 about 40 tons each are built by little companies and worked 

 on the sharing principle : so much to the men who find the 

 bait, and so much to each man who provides a net ; and a few 

 shillings per pound of the weekly earnings of the ship go to 

 the owners. In France there are various ways of engaging 

 the boats and conducting the fisheries. There are some men 

 who fish on their own account, who have their own boat, sail, 

 and nets, etc., and who find their own bait, whether at the 

 sardine-fishery or when prosecuting any other branch of the 

 sea fisheries. Of course these boat-owners hire what assistance 

 they require, and pay for it. There are other men again who 

 hire a boat and work it on the sharing plan, each man getting 

 so much, the remainder being left for the owner. A third 

 class of persons are those who work off their advances : these 

 are a class of men so poor as to be obliged to pawn their 

 labour to the boat-owners long before it is required. We 

 can parallel this at home in the herring-fishery, where the 

 advance of money to the men has become something very 

 like a curse to all concerned. 



The joint-stock fishing system has been prevalent in 

 Scotland, with various modifications, for a very long period. 

 Ship-carpenters at one time used to speculate in the fisheries, 

 and build boats in order to give fishermen a share in them, 

 and persons who had nets would lend them out on condition 

 of getting a share in the speculation. The two or three fisher- 

 men chiefly concerned would assume a few landsmen as 

 assistants. At the end of the season the proceeds of the 

 fishing were divided ; the proprietors of the boat drew each 



