a 
‘TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION F. 1175 
The perfection of safety-lamps is yearly increasing the miners’ outlay, being more 
costly at purchase and more difficult and expensive to maintain. 
4. Royalties are aiso a source of annoyance, friction, and injustice to the miner ; 
the theory of royalties is meanwhile out of consideration. The case stands thus. A 
miner may be digging coal at from 73d. to 1s. Gd. per ton—but, for a case, say 10d., 
and the royalty in that seam 1s, 4d. for a week. The miner earns 20s., with deduc- 
tions 2s, 2d. ; nett earning 17s. 10d.,as against 32s. to the landlord for royalty. The 
case is a strong one, but in Lanarkshire the average royalty is 1s. per ton. The 
miners hold that, as formerly and as is still the law of Scotland, such royalty charges 
should only be exacted by the realm. The idea of forming a ‘ National Benevolent 
and Insurance I'und’ from such charges is rapidly gaining ground, following the 
precedent of France, and developing the Knapp Shaft Verein of Germany. 
5. The monetary aspect of the foregoing matters is a very serious consideration 
to working miners, demanding for tools an outlay of 30s. to 40s, ; while for weekly 
charges for oil, powder, sharpening wedges, shafts, &c., they are never under 2s, or 
2s, 6d., and thus with the royalty tax and capital exactions their labour is handi- 
capped and natural expansion hindered. 
5. The Statistics and some points in the Economies of the Scottish Fisheries. 
By Wiuu1am Wart, F.S.8. 
The author began by stating that the value of the Scottish fisheries may be 
roughly estimated at 34 millions sterling per annum, or 1/. per each unit of the 
population, of which two-thirds are derived from herring. The other sea-fishes 
yield only three-quarters of a million—haddock producing 800,000/., cod and ling 
266,000/7. (it might easily be a great deal more) ; while the yield from whitings, 
flat-fishes, and the rest is comparatively small. Shellfish reckon in the Fishery 
Board's statistics for 81,000/., and salmon for 275,000/. The greatest by far, 
as well as most expansive, of Scottish fishery industries is the ‘white cured 
herring’ trade, which in magnitude has more than doubled within the last quarter 
of a century. 
In ten years, 1855-64, there were cured yearly 625,000 barrels ; 
i 1865-74, ‘ eS. OOF 5, 
bi 1875-84 59 er 515 lg lO0,000, \,, 
But in the five years, 1880-84, 3 59 pr P eer; OO0gs «55, 
And last year, 1884, there were cured 1,700,000 __,, 
The fishermen work at a much greater distance from the land than they did a 
quarter of a century ago; they have better boats, and a great increase of netting. 
More than one-half of last year’s catch of herrings, namely, 856,000 barrels, was 
landed within a radius of fifty miles of Aberdeen. Aberdeenshire had 760,000 
barrels, equal to an item of 89,000 tons in the general food supply, of which the 
first price was about eight guineas a ton, or one penny a pound. The same county 
supplies yearly some 45,000 cattle for conversion into beef, yielding about 15,000 
tons, or possibly a little more; worth, with the offal, between.1} and 1} million 
sterling. The entire beef-production of Scotland in a year is about 110,000 tons, 
and its value, at 75/. a ton, 8} millions; add 70,000 tens of mutton, at 6? millions, 
and the animal-food produce of our Scottish fields and pastures is 180,000 tons, 
and its value 15,000,000/. The produce of the sea, exclusive of shell-fish 
and salmon, is 275,000 tons, and its value about three millions. In other words, 
Scotland's contribution of fish to the general food supply is one-third more in 
quantity and four-fifths less in prime cost than its contribution of beef and 
mutton. 
Eleven-twelfths of last year’s herring supply were cured for export, and of the 
actual exports a still higher proportion went to Germany and Russia. <A great 
change has come over the course of the trade within the last fifty years, as is 
shown by the following table of exports :— 
