THE FISHERIES AND FISHING LAWS OF HAWAII. 379 
as a whole. It is but rarely that there is a scareity of fish in the 
markets, the principal complaint in this regard coming from those 
places which are rather inaccessible and where the fishermen are few 
in number, such as on Kauai. The most plausible reason for the high 
prices is that fishery products have gone up in correspondence with the 
other necessaries of life, which are unusually high as compared with 
the rest of the country. The great development of the sugar industry 
in the last fifteen years, and the profitable prices realized for the prod- 
uct, have caused a great boom in everything, particularly in the wages 
paid to labor, and the cost of the necessaries of life has been raised to 
correspond, It is very probable that as things settle down to a more 
normal condition the cost of fishery products will be lowered to more 
nearly their proper level. The Chinese and Japanese have organized 
compunies at several places to monopolize the business, and these have 
also been important factors in causing the high prices. 
The methods of transportation between points on the same island 
are rather crude in many instances, while in others the cost of trans- 
portation is practicahy prohibitive so far as fishery products are con- 
cerned, as a result of which the supply of each place must be drawn 
largely from its own immediate neighborhood, especially as ice is so 
expensive that it can not be used to preserve shipments for any length 
of time. The building of railroads on Oahu and Hawaii has aided 
very materially in the matter of the transportation of fishery products 
at reasonable rates. The steamer rates between the various islands of 
the group are prohibitive at present, and as the distances are too far 
for small boats there is no opportunity for the fishermen on one island 
who have an excess to ship to another island where there is a tempo- 
‘ary scarcity. These problems will all work themselves out as the 
means of transportation increase. 
Immense quantities of canned, salted, smoked, and dried fishery 
products, such as salmon, cod, skipjack, mackerel, herring, sardines, 
shrimps, lobsters, oysters, clams, mullet, etc., are imported and con- 
sumed by the people, particularly on the sugar plantations. As these 
are in many instances located in rather inaccessible regions where fresh 
fishery products can not be obtained at any price, they are perforce 
compelled to depend on the prepared goods for their supply. 
The bubonic plague broke out in Honolulu in December, 1890, and 
lasted several months. This proved a serious detriment to the sale of 
fresh fishery products, as it was thought by many persons that the 
disease might be transmitted in this way. 
The three tables following show in condensed form, by islands, the 
persons employed, the boats, apparatus, fish ponds, shore and acces- 
sory property, and cash capital used in the business, and the catch by 
species, together with the value of same. The island of Oahu leads 
all the others in almost every phase of the industry, followed by 
