THE COD AND COD—FISHERY 323 
compelled to bring losses on the fish-catchers when it is 
imperative for the merchant to compound with his creditors. 
The element of chance, that a bad voyage may, after all, 
turn out a good one, adds another attraction to fishing, 
however monotonous it may appear. The love of a gamble 
is innate in man. Of late years there has been a consider- 
ably larger quantity of fish exported by smaller men, but 
the tendency is to confine the actual export process to | 
the larger firms. 
Naturally the Norwegian catch influences the total supply 
very materially, and a failure there means better prices 
here. The French can scarcely afford to export fish, for 
they are paid such high bounties for taking it to France. 
Happily for the fish-catcher, the markets for salt fish 
are not only opening up wonderfully, but the price obtain- 
able has also been steadily increasing, and has risen from 
2.22 cents per pound to 4.74 cents in the last six years. 
This, more than anything else, explains the general pros- 
perity of our people. For the rise in the market price is 
out of all proportion to any increase in the amount of fish 
taken. There is good reason to suppose that this rise in 
price will be maintained as long as the article exported 
is properly cured. The wealth and numbers of the 
peoples requiring this produce are steadily increasing, and 
other proteid foods are rising in price synchronously. It 
seems, therefore, that in this respect our future is still in 
our own hands, and that there are yet halcyon days in store 
for our folk that “go sailing out into the deep.” 
The import duties imposed by our customers vary 
greatly. France prohibits foreign cod altogether, with a 
tariff of $4.68 per quintal, besides giving bounties to her own 
