BOUNTIES 135 



ported by State encouragement. They were, 

 however, no longer hampered by restrictive 

 regulations, though it was only by the Sea 

 Fisheries Act of 1868 that the Scottish herring 

 fishery was entirely freed of restrictions. 



A shrewd observation has been made that 

 all the fisheries that have ever prospered 

 have risen gradually from small beginnings, 

 the number of people bred to them, and the 

 increase of markets keeping pace with the 

 gradual increase in the quantity of fish caught, 

 thus avoiding the waste and want of thrifty 

 management always associated with the pecu- 

 liar methods and loose organisation of an enter- 

 prise carried on by joint-stock companies or 

 administered under State control, even though 

 the undertaking be a monopoly. 



The hand of the State being removed, we 

 see from the Report on the Herring Fisheries 

 of Scotland by Buckland, Walpole and Young 

 (1878), that the history of the industry from 

 1809 onwards, though marked by constant 

 fluctuations from year to year, is, on the whole, 

 a record of continual prosperity. The improve- 

 ment is the more noteworthy because in the 

 course of a century the export trade in herrings 

 has undergone many revolutions. The Irish 

 demand has decreased, and with the abolition 

 of slavery the export of herring to the West 

 Indies has almost entirely ceased. Steamboats 

 and railways, however, have had an extremely 

 beneficial effect as increasing the area of distri- 



