FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES. 289 



Usage in respect to the matters of their calling, and to their 

 knowledge of security in the enforcement of a just Usage. 

 For this reason their remedies should be made as simple 

 as possible. Fishermen, with the exception of salvors, 

 who are chiefly beachmen or long-shore fishermen, are not 

 a litigious class ; the majority prefer losing their remedy 

 to losing a day's fishing. Their knowledge of what is a 

 just usage will increase proportionately as their class 

 jealousies are dissipated, and as they learn many things 

 over and above the present mere practical routine of their 

 business. Drifters may be taught that trawlers, provided 

 that the latter do not actually come into contact with drift- 

 nets, so far from lessening the supply of fish, may, by 

 stirring the fish up, increase the catch of the drift-nets ; 

 whilst it may be shown to all that it is possible by learning 

 something of water-temperatures and other matters regu- 

 lating the haunts of fish at different seasons of the year, 

 that a bad fishing may possibly be turned into a good one. 

 In this direction it is not improbable that some successful 

 results might be achieved if those who are acquainted with 

 the rudimentary principles already discovered volunteered 

 technical instruction to fishermen over and above that 

 which fishermen already possess, and which at present 

 chiefly consists in the management of their boats and nets, 

 and going at fixed periods of the year to certain fixed 

 localities, and rarely to any others. 



In some districts inhabited by fishermen, many of whom 

 reside in villages some miles from the coast, commercial 

 enterprise has induced railway companies to issue tickets at 

 reduced fares during those periods of the year at which 

 fishermen are either "making up " or habitually returning 

 between their boats and their homes. Philanthropic enter- 

 prise also has at many fishing stations provided them with 



VOL. IX. E. 7. U 



