THE 



RELATIONS OF THE STATE 



WITH 



FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES. 



AN industry in which, in the United Kingdom alone, some Extent and 



., . , . , value of the 



150,000 persons are directly engaged as fishermen ; which fishery 



gives employment to at least an equal number of persons 1D 

 as curers, packers, &c., and, indirectly, to a still larger 

 number as makers of nets and hooks, barrels, and other 

 apparatus and appliances for the equipment of the boats ; 

 in which capital to the extent of not less than three or four 

 millions sterling * is invested ; the value of whose produce 



* The statistics on which these estimates are based are very im- 

 perfect ; but from the data available the following figures are taken. 

 In 1 88 1, according to the Board of Trade returns, 10,357 boats were 

 registered as fishing-boats arid vessels under the " Sea Fisheries Act, 

 1868," in England and Wales, 766 in the Isle of Man and Channel 

 Isles, and 14,145 in Scotland ; the total number of fishermen and boys 

 employed by all these boats being given as 94,764. The Scotch 

 Herring Board, however, in its report for 1881, states that in the 

 Scotch herring, cod, and ling fisheries alone, 14,809 boats and 48,121 

 fishermen were engaged in that year. The report of the Irish 

 Fishery Inspectors for 1881 states the number of registered fishing 

 boats to have been 6458, and of fishermen and boys, 24,528. These 

 figures give us an approximate return of, say, 33,000 boats, and about 

 120,000 fishermen and boys. The returns are, however, admittedly 

 incomplete, and would in no case take account of the large numbers 

 of fishermen whose boats are unregistered, and who do not follow 

 fishing as their only occupation. The estimate, therefore, of a total 



