32 BRITISH FISH AND FISHERIES. 



regulations respecting the curing and barrelling 

 of the fish, chiefly borrowed from the Dutch, 

 were laid down, and a board consisting of seven 

 commissioners was appointed for seeing that 

 the provisions of the act were strictly carried 

 into operation. In 1815, this act was con- 

 firmed, but the bounty extended to vessels of 

 forty-five tons' burden ; and, in 1817, while there 

 was a heavy duty on salt, the use of this article 

 for the curing of fish was permitted duty free. 



Notwithstanding all this, the fishery could 

 not be said to be in a truly stable or flourishing 

 condition the system of bounties w r as radically 

 wrong. The business was forced and fictitious, 

 and Mr. M'Culloch well observes : "Its exten- 

 sion under the circumstances in question, instead 

 of affording any proof of its being in a really 

 flourishing condition, was distinctly the reverse. 

 Individuals without capital, but who obtained 

 loans sufficient to enable them to acquire boats, 

 barrels, salt, etc., on the credit of the bounty, 

 entered in vast numbers into the trade. The 

 market was most commonly glutted with fish, 

 and yet the temptation held out by the bounty 

 caused it to be still further overloaded. Great 

 injury was consequently done to those fish- 

 curers who possessed capital, and even the 

 fishermen were injured by the system. 



