HISTORY OF SEA-FISHEUIES. 197 



industry were in a greater or less degree pau- 

 perised. The cause of this! unfavorable change, 

 to which, as being in its opinion the most readily 

 susceptible of remedy, the committee gave its 

 principal attention, was the interference of the 

 fishermen of France and Holland ; but the prin- 

 cipal cause of the distress was stated to be "the 

 great and increasing scarcity of all fish that breed 

 in the Channel,'' compared with what was the 

 ordinary supply forty years since ; operating pre- 

 judicially to the fisherman, at the same time that a 

 continual fall of prices has taken place in the 

 markets. This fall of prices could not have 

 occurred in consequence of any scarcity in the 

 supply. That there was a diminished quantity 

 taken by the English fishermen might possibly 

 have been true ; but considering that the supply 

 in our markets was actually increased, so as to 

 provide our growing population at progressively 

 decreasing prices, I can only account for the 

 facts adduced by the committee by supposing 

 that the foreign fishermen, of whose interference 

 such grievous complaint was made, were better 

 skilled and more persevering in their calling than 

 our own countrymen ; a supposition which seems 



