PROTECTION OF DEEP SEA FISHERIES. 457 



the same market, and at the same minute, one parcel 

 branded as " Crown fulls " has been worth two, three, 

 and even more marks, less than another parcel bearing the 

 same brand. 



There are many who advocate the retention of the brand 

 on account of its rendering personal skill and attention 

 unnecessary in dealing and speculating in herrings. These 

 are principally bankers and agents, who would suffer, at 

 the very most only temporarily by its abolition, for the 

 small curers would still have to make use of their capital, 

 and it would not take long to establish a system between 

 them for making advances as formerly, as necessity would 

 be, in their case, the mother of invention. 



When a Government in the present day interferes with 

 a trade, and goes so far as to lend itself to guaranteeing 

 the qualities simply on the judgment of one man, of an 

 article for which there can be no uniform standard fixed, it 

 is undoubtedly a drawback and check to private skill and 

 enterprise. There are men ready to come forward and 

 effect considerably superior cures, but the obstacle of the 

 Government brand tells them that, so long as that lasts, 

 they would not get properly recompensed for their extra 

 skill and outlay, or at least not without sacrificing a large 

 amount of money (which few are able to do) to fight 

 against an old-established custom (which has the Govern- 

 ment of the largest commercial nation at its back), to 

 establish their own superiority of cure, and to guarantee a 

 continuance of that superiority by long repute. Since 

 the Board was first established, and the regulations made 

 as to size of barrels, rapid strides have been made in 

 chemistry and the preservation of food in tins and other 

 ways, and things which our forefathers would have believed 

 impossible in this way are now accomplished facts. 



