506 THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 



to import foreign herring for re-exportation in the same 

 barrels, un-opened and unbranded ; and the general Customs 

 tariff of 1816 admitted such herring for home consumption, 

 although subject to a heavy duty. Fish dealers in 1818 

 were, for the first time, utterly deprived of a branch of 

 their business for the better preservation of the Grand 

 Fishery's monopoly. 



The law was not established without serious opposition. 

 The importing prohibition just mentioned was, in the first 

 place, the subject of a warm remonstrance in the Second 

 Chamber, on the part of no less a personage than Count 

 Hogendorp,* who found sufficient motive in Art. 6 to 

 vote against the Bill, although favourably inclined towards 

 it in general.f But the main brunt of antagonism was 

 borne by the sixteenth clause of the law, by which the 

 Grand Fishery's monopoly of curing herring after Beukelsz' 

 ancient method was once more consecrated, to the exclu- 

 sion of the fishermen of both the North Sea and Zuider Zee 

 shores. This monopoly, which we have seen established in 

 the eighteenth century by the potent Commissioners of the 

 Grand Fishery, and maintained by the laws of 1800 and 

 1 80 1, had already been expressly re-enforced by a special 

 law dated November 25th, 1814 (Staatsblad No. 108). Of 

 all the several items of protection to which the Grand 

 Fishery had learned to cling for two centuries and more, 

 they held this curing privilege the most precious. Fresh- 

 herring fishermen, on the other hand, still considered their 



* One of the illustrious men who led the revolt against the French 

 authorities, some time before the arrival of the allied forces. This 

 great and wise statesman has, throughout his career as such, ad- 

 vocated the principle of Free Trade. 



t Hogendorp, Bijdragen t.d. Huish. van Staat, ii. p. 249. The entire 

 debate upon the Bill is to be found in Mr. Noordziek's collection of 

 States-General Records > 1817-18, p. 288. 



