v: 



Commissioner, West Berar s (p. cr), "that whatever 

 restriction may be imposed, no class of people will be soj 

 affected as to interfere with their means of livelihood/' If 

 the fisheries are improved the fishing classes will be laigcM 

 benefirted, and those localities possessing the best stocked 

 waters (other things being equal) will hare the most fis! 



as a distinct class, because following this occupation 

 than agricultural pursuits, although the exposure 

 ips greater. Fishermen are an improvident cl 

 in India, whether Hindus or Mahomedans, are 

 in the social scale, whilst in British Burma, as Bud- 

 dists, they are charitably doomed by the more righte- 

 ous of the sect to eternal perdition in the next state of 



LXIII. llienK^ economical way of wc^iingfisheri^ 

 TCkmos MT tfey w* by persons who'make fishing a dist: 

 ~- " ^ ."..".:' ..7. ."v. . ":.'":..-_.. T-.-I; _> .. SYLHI- 



ciency of work. They may be divided into the contractor* or 

 ieme*, who become tenants of rivers or portions of them . 

 canals, tanks or jkils, often having sub-partners, who take 



- * ^-^ g+ ^ _ ^ _ fc ^ 



StUOPf?^ m %ai^ iMMmfyL 3LDU MPC ICflBLOQDflRHBCQL OV A pTOOCMrt ^f^Ti 



either of the captures, or else of the money received for such, 

 after the payment of the rent and other expenses. Some t 

 coolies or paid servants, who either receive a stipulated sum 

 a day in money and fish, or else a certain or proportionate 

 amount of the captured fish, which they dispose of : d tl 

 persons may be kept on regularly far merely the fishing sea- 

 son, or only occasionally as more hands are required. Second- 

 fy, there are those who, on payment of a license fee, are - 

 mined to fish in the Government waters otherwise unlet, 

 fKrdfy when the fisheries are declared free to all, and e - 

 one is allowed to capture the fish as suits his convenience I 

 Zosttjr, the general popriatiQn may be giren tne rignt to take 

 sufficient for home consumption where they like, and how 

 they pka, provided they neither sell iM>r preserve it. Con- 

 tractors almost invariably give the workers a personal in 

 est in the takes, and, whether sub-partners or coolies, t 

 genenlhr have to provide their own nets, and lor this porj 

 the lessee or a banian advances money to purchase the raw 

 material, and thus the coolie becomes irrevocably involved in 

 debt. In some districts the fishing is free to every one with- 

 out any restrictions. This may he doe to several independ- 

 ent causes, such as the difficulty in making the fist: _ 

 remunerative,, owing to the rapidity of the current in ri 

 or canals : to the paucity of fish, as in mornr hill streams and ' 



