152 THE HERRING FISHERY 



From the second edition of Lord Dundonald's 

 second pamphlet, " The Present State of the 

 Manufacture of Salt Explained," published on 

 May 17th of the same year, we learn that the 

 Commissioners of H.M. Duty on Salt were by 

 Statute (5 Geo. II.) allowed to license persons 

 to use any building for the refining of rock 

 salt, etc., at each of the following places : — 

 Haybridge, Colchester, Manningtree, Ipswich, 

 Woodbridge, Walberswick, and South wold. He 

 makes the bold suggestion that all duties and 

 restrictions on the sale of salt should be 

 abolished, the deficiency in revenue to be 

 made good by a hearth tax, the analogy of 

 the " smoke farthing " of Domesday Book. 



Nor can it be said that the proposal was 

 untimely, since the report of the Commission 

 already quoted states not only that the restric- 

 tions on salt were so serious as to cause the loss * 

 of much herring actually caught, but that they 

 had put an end to the cod fishery on the 

 coast of Iceland, which sixty years earlier 

 had employed no fewer than 200 boats from 

 Yarmouth alone. It was the herring fishery, 

 however, that was chiefly affected by the salt 

 duties, since, as we have seen, the law had 

 practically forbidden the use of salt except 

 for herrings, and the subsequent reports pre- 

 sented to the House of Commons in 1785, 1786 

 and 1798 show the increasing interest taken in 

 the fisheries and a gradual realisation of the 

 fact that prohibitive salt duties in troubled 



