FISHERIES AND THEIR PRODUCE. 47 



refusal to accede to the full extent of their 

 demands. 



" We wish further to repeat, and to impress 

 upon the attention of all parties, that the rivers 

 are the natural nurseries, not merely for the 

 fisheries within their banks and at their 

 mouths, but also for the public fisheries on the 

 coasts, and that the times to be allowed for 

 fishing therein must be regulated by a con- 

 sideration of what is best, on the whole, for the 

 public interest." 



From the slight sketch we have thus for 

 given of the extent and operations of the British 

 fisheries, (for the chief statistical facts of which 

 we are mainly indebted to ^Mr. JM'Culloch, and 

 an able article in the Penny Cyclopsedia,) a 

 tolerable idea may be formed of the national 

 importance of this branch of commercial enter- 

 prise. It gives employment to thousands ; it 

 is one of the sources of national prosperity. 

 We have said nothing of the oyster fishery, the 

 lobster fishery, or the whale fishery, for these 

 do not come within oiu' present subject. 

 Various are the estimates, from defective data, 

 which different writers have given of the total 

 value of the combined fisheries belon^inir to 

 Great Britain. There are no means of arrivins 

 at accuracy ; the sum, however, must be very 



