2 BRITISH IND USTRIES. 



regarded as satisfactory. The increase in the aggre- 

 gate tonnage of the larger fishing boats in England 

 and Scotland ; the marked improvement in the style of 

 craft used ; the larger supply of fish generally to the 

 markets, consequent on the greater enterprise of the 

 fishermen ; and notwithstanding the larger supply, the 

 better prices the fishermen themselves receive for their 

 captures, point alike to the increased demand for fish 

 throughout the country, and to the confidence of the 

 fishermen in the unfailing numbers of fish in the sea. 

 In no class of persons perhaps is there, however, more 

 frequent complaining or grumbling about bad times 

 than among fishermen, if they are asked how their 

 fishing is going on. The uncertainty about fishing 

 seems generally present in their minds, and they 

 cannot readily forget the amount of money they have 

 laid out on boats or nets, and that bad weather, or 

 some other cause not easy of explanation, may possibly 

 prevent their having a good return for their outlay. 

 There are often also antagonistic feelings between line 

 and net fishermen, and between drift fishermen and 

 trawlers ; and when one method of fishing is at all 

 interfered with by another when trawlers occasionally 

 work over ground where line-fishing has been carried 

 on, and thus .an innovation on the modes of fishing 

 practised in a particular district has been made, then 

 complaints are heard of the fish having been almost 

 all driven away from the coast, and comparisons are 

 made of the present bad times with some particular 

 season when, on inquiry being made, it is probably 

 found that fish were unusually abundant. There is no 



