FISHERY STATISTICS 233 



Statistical Tables and Memoranda for that year 

 (p. 27) to have been 29,475. But the officials 

 of the Lancashire Committee estimated the value 

 of the cockles obtained from their fishing grounds 

 to have been, for that year, at the least^ about 

 > Ti3,37o. 1 Then, a year or two before that a 

 public inquiry was held by a Board of Trade 

 inspector, in the report of which it is stated 

 (and the statement is apparently accepted) that the 

 value of the shrimps landed annually in the same 

 district is about ^5o,ooo. 2 Thus we have : 



Board of Trade figures for total shell-fish, 29,475. 

 Local Committee's figures for cockles and shrimps 

 only, 63,370. 



Even then, the total value of Lancashire shell- 

 fish is not stated, for no account is taken of mussels 

 (and at Morecambe alone over 2000 tons are some- 

 times landed annually), oysters, periwinkles, and 

 some other shell-fish. 



But apart altogether from these defects in the 

 actual working of the official system of collecting 

 fishery statistics, it is evident to anyone conversant 

 with the conditions of the industry that the whole 

 system is at fault in many respects, and was, in 

 fact, devised in some ignorance of the nature of 

 the fishing trade. Far too few species of fishes 



1 Report of the Lancashire Sea- Fisheries Laboratory for 1899, 

 p. 104. 



2 Report of the Inspectors of Sea- Fisheries (England and Wales} for 

 1895, P- 42. 



