128 THE president's addbess. 



in demancT, I cannot help feeling surprised that at the present 

 very low price, such a wonderfully useful, ductile metal as copper 

 is not substituted for many purposes where now iron and other 

 inferior metals are used. The same applies to man}^ of the alloj^s 

 of copper to a greater or less degree. Constant discoveries are 

 being made of useful alloys, of copper with zinc, tin, iron, 

 phosphorus and other metals, but none of the recent 

 combinations, — as yet at any rate — have at all assumed the 

 position of exercising any effect on the copper demand. It may 

 be that hereafter electricity may prove our friend, and exercise 

 an important bearing on the market by the demand it will create 

 for one of our own county metals ; but at present the outlook is, 

 I confess, dark and dreary. 



And now to say a few words on matters more immediately 

 connected with the present occasion. I mean, those which have 

 concerned our Institution during the past year. 



Since the Annual Meeting of last year the International 

 Fisheries' Exhibition has been brought to a most successful 

 termination. Although I was a member of the General 

 Committee and did what I could to afford assistance in enabling 

 Cornwall to take part in it and to reap all the benefits practicable 

 from it, I was unable, from having been placed on one of the 

 heaviest committees that ever sat in the House of Commons 

 (namely, the Manchester Ship Canal), to take that active part 

 in it which I should otherwise have desired. It must have been 

 a matter of great congratulation to all connected with the county 

 to see by the public prints that no less than three gold, seven 

 silver, and six bronze medals were won by Cornwall, besides 

 three diplomas and sundry money prizes. If we can, at the 

 same time, hope that the various and many exhibits from other 

 countries of tackle, boats, different sorts of gear, &c., &c., were 

 of use to our industrious and deserving fishermen, this, in itself, 

 would be a source of the greatest satisfaction to all of us, for, 

 I believe, no one who has ever come across the Cornish fishermen 

 would deny, that no class of the community deserves better of 

 their country. 



And this brings me to consider, very shortly, that question 

 which has of late been occupying the minds of many of us, and 

 taking a very prominent position in our local newspapers, I mean 

 the question of Harbours of Eefuge. 



