X PEOCEEDINGS, MAY. 



single night when the fish have been plentiful. Barracouta can be 

 captured in large quantities during the season — January to June. 

 About 24 dozen Barracouta weigh a ton. The fishermen state that, 

 could they be assured of a market, 3s. a dozen for barracouta or kingfish 

 would amply repay them — i.e., about Jd. a pound. The average 

 quantity of trumpeter, perch, trevally, barracouta, kingfish, conger eel, 

 and crayfish, exported each year, almost wholly to Victoria, amounts to 

 3,396doz. The average price of the trumpeter is fixed at Is. per lb., 

 and he estimates that the yearly sales of fish since the decline of the 

 oyster fishery do not exceed £10,000 per annum. The decline in the 

 value cf oil obtained from the whale fishery is shown by comparing the 

 first and second quinquennium, the first yielding £31,281 worth, and the 

 second £19,223 worth. 



BOOT MATTERS IN SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC PROBLEMS. 



Mr. R. M. Johnston, F.L.S., continued his study of root matters in. 

 social and economic problems by reading a paper on that head. This 

 contribution formed the second series, and follows the able paper read 

 by him during last session. In that he dealt exhaustively with almost 

 every branch of social and economic science, and in the paper read last 

 night he treated the same subjects under the following heads:— 

 " Natural Limits to the numbers engaged in various occupations ;" 

 " Dominating wants determine occupations, and necessarily produce 

 inequalities in the form of services ;" "Utopian scheme of socialists;" 

 " What should be the probable effect upon social well-being if the major 

 source of savings were destroyed ;" •' Anterior savings the true source 

 of capital invested in the creation and distribution of necessary satis- 

 factions;" "Fallacies of the single tax proposal." To give a clear 

 example of the difficulties that are here to be met with by workers he 

 introduces a factitious deputation from the shoemakers driven out of 

 employment by competition with cheap foreign manufactures, and 

 employs a theorist to represent the Government and argue the question 

 with him. 



Mr. A. J. Tay lor thought that one of the principal values of the 

 papers read by Mr. Johnston consisted in the. fact that they drew 

 attention very positively to the fact that in writing and dilating upon 

 the social problems occupying our attention we were apt to lose sight of 

 the deeper considerations that underlie the superficial consideration 

 often given to those questions. Mr. Johnston gave an illustration of 

 this in his last paper, when in speaking of protection and freetrade, he 

 called attention to the fact that we were apt, in dealing with the subject, 

 to regard those important questions as ends rather than as means to 

 an end, that end being to secure the maximum of comfort essential to 

 living a healthy and happy life at a minimum cost of labour. He 

 referred briefly to several of the subjects alluded to in the paper, 

 and considered such contributions valuable, as showing the people 

 that many economic questions have not yet been settled, and have still to 

 be faced. 



His Excellency said :—" A paper like that read to us to-night by Mr. 

 Johnston requires to be studied carefully before discussing it, and I do 

 not wish to enter into discussion with Mr. Johnston, for although some 

 of the propositions he has raised are in their essence rather economic 

 than political, yet the question of protection of native industries has, in 

 these colonies, a political and party bearing which makes it undesirable 

 that I, as Governor, should take part in discussing them. But there is 

 one root matter in connection with economic problems bearing directly 

 upon this point to which I do not think Mr. Johnston has sufficiently 

 called attention, and it is this, that all commerce is barter, and that if we 

 import foreign goods, either shoes or anything else, we export something 

 in exchange for them, and if we cease to import such goods, we 



