324 LABRADOR 
men. Spain charges $2.34 per quintal, Italy 40 cents only, 
Greece 38 cents, Portugal $2.14, Brazil $1.39, United States 
84 cents; Persia, of all countries, free import, and the 
United Kingdom, free as usual! France pays 50 frances 
to each member of a crew drying fish away from France; 
30 francs to each member of a crew drying the fish in France ; 
approximately 10 francs on every quintal of salt fish shipped 
to transatlantic countries; 16 francs per quintal on ship- 
ments to cisatlantic countries; a bounty of 20 franes 
on cod roe brought back to France. So that besides the 
prohibitive duty on the fish of other countries, grants to 
foster French fisheries amount to approximately one and 
one-quarter million dollars per annum. That means that, 
if our fishermen were accorded similar privileges, they could 
almost afford to catch fish, get the bounty, and give the 
fish away. 
These important duties and bounties show that some 
countries do not value the codfish much, or they would 
welcome it in freely as a cheap food-stuff. Yet they strive 
all they can to make their own men go and catch it. Great 
are the mysteries of statesmanship ! 
Now the value to the human race, or any section of it, 
of a particular calling or industry or commodity cannot be 
measured altogether by the dollars each brings the govern- 
ment or the number of people it employs, though we are 
apt to apply these standards. If we did so, the liquor 
traffic would be classed among the most valuable to the 
race. Yet while the fishery is productive and constructive, 
the liquor trade is destructive, both of human capacity 
and of material. Probably of all industries the one of 
first importance to the British race is that which involves 
