252 THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE WITH 



failed, whilst concurrent private enterprises have reaped 

 fair harvests. Mr. Aloysius Blake, in his Parliamentary 

 Report of 1870, says, at page 31 : "There is no industry 

 which requires closer attention to make it pay ; unless 

 those engaged in it have a positive interest in every fish 

 captured, and in the saving of expenditure, success cannot 

 be looked for." Payment by dole has in addition an 

 elevating tendency. It removes a fisherman from the bare 

 position of a journeyman to one akin to that of a master 

 trader, and opens up to the industrious and lucky the 

 ambition of becoming boatowners. After a good fishing, 

 enough is frequently saved to enable a fisherman to buy a 

 plot of land, and in a subsequent year to erect his cottage. 

 The speculative element in the fishing industry does not 

 injuriously affect the lower orders with the malice of that 

 in a gambling concern. This arises from the fact that 

 English crew-fishermen, amongst whom the very frequent 

 custom of the Scotch does not extensively prevail, have 

 not necessarily, although paid by share, invested, apart 

 from their labour, a share in the capital of the boat and nets. 

 After a bad season their loss consists in not gaining, not 

 in the loss of a disbursement. The independence and 

 prosperity of this class of fishermen may particularly be 

 observed amongst the coast peasantry of Suffolk and 

 Norfolk. Landsmen engaged in the fishery, principally 

 in hauling up nets at the capstan, together with more 

 regular hands, return with their share-money to the villages 

 and to farm work, so that deriving profits from more than 

 one harvest in the year, they become little affected by times 

 of agricultural depression. 



Section 8 of the Act of 1873 enables the master of a 

 fishing vessel to agree that any person employed shall be 

 wholly remunerated by a share in the fishing adventure. 



