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GOLD COAST COLONY. 



FISHERIES as to their economic value depend on quality, supply, and demand. Where a want 

 equals the catch of the finny tribe, an industry may be viewed as healthy, whether the 

 supply be marketable and local, or whether which is another consideration, and one 

 more to the point as regards this paper local consumption or industrial demand, or both, 

 does not equal the catch, and as a consequence the surplus has to be and can be profitably 

 sent to more distant markets where disposal will readily follow. In the latter case so much 

 would naturally depend on the available means and effective conveniences of transport, 

 especially as to the disposition of fresh fish, or the effectiveness of curing where climate 

 and circumstances put beyond consideration the transit of fresh fish. As a rule, it may bo 

 said of the tropics that fresh fish to be enjoyed must be consumed on the day of the catch. 

 It does not always admit, indeed, of this and the surplus captures, if energy prove sufficient 

 for such an issue, are cured and sent to inland markets that offer. 



My remarks are meant to apply to the Gold Coast Colony, where the people may bo 

 described as a fish-eating population, and where caste prejudices do not exist. Fetish 

 restrictions may be at times, but rarely, imposed on the catch or consumption of this article 

 of diet, but charity begins at home even with the Fetishman who is often a fisherman, 

 and, when not, is the recipient of ''dashes" from the sea in the shape of fish by the pro- 

 pitiators of the sea-god ; thus he would not be so shortsighted as to impose any restrictions 

 on so needful and essential a commodity, especially when he would know that, were he so, 

 his power of imposing obedience might be jeopardized by seafarers. 



In a country where local demand keeps pace with the population, and where the cost of 

 fishing gear is comparatively, trivial when it is remembered that the value of time is not 

 yet known so that the estimate of labour in the computation of outlay on appliances is not 

 of much moment, the question of supply may be said to be favourably met; whereas as to 

 the demand the sale-market is large and wide enough, representing, as it does, a huge 

 interior, but a clammy and damp, at the same time hot climate, bad roads, no other means 

 of transport 1 but in baskets on the heads of natives, imperfect system of curing, stand forth 

 as obstacles, and indeed great ones, towards the development and growth of a healthy 

 inland fish traffic. 



Philanthropic and scientific expeditions undertaken at various times in the past point to 

 the fertility of the Eastern Atlantic as a fish-bed, but it is evident that sufficient advantage, 

 compared with the fruit to have been reaped, has not been taken of nature's bounty ; and 

 as regards West Africa, a comparatively new and scientifically unknown region, other 

 mercantile and more popular attractions and manias have caused" the fish industry to be 

 now what it was a hundred years ago, aye more ab initio the primitive calling and promotion 

 of the aborigines in whose hands it has been and is, but towards whom more interest of a 

 practical nature should have been, and it is to be hoped will be, directed in the matter, at 

 least, of the improvement of the system of catch and healthy supply. 



No approximate value of the fisheries can be given. Data are not forthcoming. The 

 population of the Gold Coast cannot, it would seem, be got within the range of "practical 

 statistics." It will be ideal to state that most of the people, estimated in round numbers 

 say at 400,000, live chiefly on fish, so that some conception can be formed of the consider- 

 able catch there must be annually to supply such a mass, as also the great unlimited interior 

 markets beyond our jurisdiction. 



The Gold Coast Colony prior to the following date made up of the settlements on the 

 Gold Coast and the settlement of Lagos comprises, according to Letters Patent of 22nd 

 January, 1883, all places, settlements, and territories belonging to Her Majesty the Queen, 

 in West Africa, between the 5th degree of W. Long, and the 5th degree of E. Long. 

 It must not be understood that the colony is one and undivided, for a strip of coast and 

 country commonly nown as the Dahomean sea-board and territory intervenes. 



The population of the Gold Coast has, as already stated, never yet got beyond an estimate. 

 Lagos was, however, more favoured, for in 1881 the census effort there applied and gave 

 its population as 75,270, of whom 5,695 were returned as fishermen. 



