THE BRITISH FISH TRADE. 51 



compared with the statistics for Wales. Irish fishermen 

 have been the favourite object of state patronage for years : 

 so long as this patronage continues there will always be a 

 race of Irish fishermen. But no politician has yet risen up 

 who has demanded state patronage for Welsh fishermen ; 

 and in consequence, the Welsh fisheries can hardly be said 

 to exist at all. If Holyhead and Milford be excluded, the 

 whole of the Welsh ports did not send 1,000 tons of fish by 

 railway to the markets in 1 88 1. Yet North Wales on a clear 

 day can look upon the hills of the Isle of Man, which has 

 nurtured the hardiest race of fishermen in the world ; South 

 Wales is not much more distant from the opposite coasts of 

 Cornwall whose people draw a rich harvest from the sea ; 

 while in West Wales stranger boats pursue a profitable 

 herring fishery. It is almost an inevitable deduction from 

 these facts that the Welsh and Irish fisheries do not prosper 

 because the Welsh and Irish people do not take readily to 

 sea-fishing as a pursuit. 



Of the 272,000 tons of railway-borne fish, which were 

 carried inland in '1881, about 90,000 tons were brought to 

 London. The Metropolis, therefore, in addition to the large 

 quantities of fish which it received direct from the sea, 

 absorbed one-third of the whole of the fish carried inland 

 by railway. The supply of fish to London has been steadily 

 increasing for several years ; rising from about 95,000 tons in 

 1875, to about 130,000 tons in 1880. Out of this vast supply 

 of 130,000 tons, more than three-fourths, or 100,000 tons, 

 were drawn from the North Sea. London, however, is not 

 the only market which is dependent on the North Sea. 

 Out of the 206,000 tons of fish which are borne annually 

 from English ports by railways, 164,000 tons are carried 

 from ports situated on the North Sea. The North Sea, 

 therefore, is the main source of the fish supply of the United 



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