HORNELL MARINE RESOURCES 29 



had been harvested during this period over the country as a whole, the peasantry and 

 villagers were penniless, and but for the famine relief provided by the Government of 

 II. H. the Gaekwar, many would have had to face death from starvation. 



If a fish trade be established satisfactorily, and if religious scruples can be 

 overcome, many of these same people under similar conditions may earn fair wages by 

 participating in one way or another in a fish-curing industry, greatly to their own 

 benefit as well as to that of their Government. 



To turn the possibilities outlined above into actuality, to create and establish 

 an industry characterised by comparative complexity due to the varied character of 

 the methods that must necessarily be employed and which require to be directed by 

 specialised skill and technical knowledge of a high order, is a problem calling for the 

 most careful thought and preparation. Discredit and failure are bound to ensue if 

 any attempt at rushing the project be made ; the allied operations of catching, 

 curing and distributing must gradually evolve through the necessarily slow processes 

 of investigation and development. In Europe or America, where fishing and curing 

 have attained a state of high development and organisation and where skill and capital 

 are available whenever there are fair prospects of large profits to be made in the 

 opening up of new fishing grounds or the inception of a newly-devised industry, such 

 an undertaking as that now suggested above would certainly be taken in hand by 

 private enterprise, by some firm already in the trade having the command of the 

 experience, apparatus and capital needful. In India, for various causes, native enter- 

 prise is extremely conservative, greatly disinclined to strike out in new lines until such 

 have been proved by others by Government or European enterprise to be capable 

 of yielding good returns ; in other words, initiative is lacking in large measure. In 

 the present instance the requirements of the case are such as cannot be grappled with 

 except by initial investigation and subsequent pioneering conducted by Government. 

 As a commencement, full information must be collected on the methods of fishing and 

 curing already employed successfully on the neighbouring coasts of Sind and Kutch ; 

 if possible, by one who is an expert in fishing and curing, in order that he may be 

 able to assess the advantages and disadvantages of the methods hitherto employed, 

 and to advise what modifications and innovations should be introduced. The next 

 step will then be to ascertain what fishes of food value are available in such numbers 

 in the sea around Okhamandal as to be worth fishing for specifically ; in other words, 

 a fish census will have to be taken by means of such nets, lines, and other means, as the 

 officer in charge of the investigation may deem most suitable. The most effective 

 methods of capture will next have to be ascertained by practical experiment, together 

 with the forms of curing suitable for the markets to be catered for. A modest and 

 temporary experimental station may be found desirable as the headquarters of the 

 expert where he may carry out his experiments. Here, too, he would be able to make 

 a series of demonstrations for the benefit of such of the local men of standing and 



