FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES. 183 



of the packing of herrings to qualify them for the brand. 

 But it is to be hoped that the usefulness of the Board will 

 be increased in other directions. It has already established Value of 



statistics. 



a strong claim to the gratitude of those interested in the 

 welfare of the fisheries by compiling the careful statistics 

 already quoted ; and it has also performed useful work in 

 maintaining and extending fishery harbours. Whether the 

 brand be retained or not, the Board has an ample field 

 before it for the extension of its labours in these directions, 

 and the State would do well if it not only increased the 

 powers of the Board so as to enable it to make a scientific 

 examination of the fisheries,* but if it also authorised the 

 collection of similar statistics, and the prosecution of 

 scientific inquiry, by the other Fishery Departments. 



Not only the home fisheries and those carried on in the Bounties on 



ijacent seas, but the cod fisheries of Newfoundland, the out for the 

 whale and seal fisheries of Greenland and the Gulf of St. 

 iwrence, and even the whale fishery in the Antarctic Ocean 



rere included in the bounty system. In the reign of 

 Henry VIII. fish bought in " any part of Iceland, Scotland, 



Irkney, Shetland, Ireland; or Newland " were first exempted 

 from the law prohibiting the sale of fish bought abroad, not 

 from any particular desire to benefit those countries or their 

 fisheries, but to foster a spirit of adventure among the 



lesrmen, partly also, in all probability, to compensate 

 for the scarcity of fish which the prohibition of foreign 

 imports, coupled with the incentive to exportation which 



le bounties afforded, was causing in the home markets, 

 ind at the same time to avoid giving open encouragement 

 trade with the French, Dutch, and Norwegian fishermen 



-jealousy of whom was one cause of that prohibition. 



* Since this was written the Scotch Fishery Board has undertaken 

 mch scientific inquiries as are above suggested. 



