54 THE BRITISH FISH TRADE. 



afford (i) accommodation for buyers and sellers; (2) 

 standing room, and, where perishable articles are con- 

 cerned, standing room under covered ways for the vans 

 which are being unpacked ; and (3) easy access." * The 

 accommodation in Billingsgate itself is scanty ; but it is 

 perhaps sufficient. The accommodation outside the market 

 is disgracefully insufficient. The vans which bring the fish 

 into it are forced to stand while they are unpacked in the- 

 adjoining street ; and this street which only extends along 

 one side of the market is a narrow and inconvenient 

 thoroughfare. The vans, therefore, are often delayed in 

 their approach to the market, they are frequently forced to 

 move on while vans with other fish for which there might 

 be a greater demand at the moment are being brought up 

 and unpacked, and these operations, which would be objec- 

 tionable in any case, are doubly objectionable in the case 

 of a perishable article like fish on a hot summer morning. 



The time, therefore, has obviously arrived when the 

 market and its approaches should be rendered adequate, or 

 the market itself should be removed to some other situation. 

 It must rest with the Corporation of London to determine 

 which of the two courses should be taken. The Corpora- 

 tion owns the market, and is therefore the only body 

 which can be expected to improve it. The reasons which 

 make improvement preferable to removal must be plain to 

 every one. Nothing is so conservative as trade, and 

 nothing is so difficult as to alter the channel in which a 

 particular trade flows. It may take time before any 

 market, however convenient it may be, can supersede 

 Billingsgate. On the other hand, the expense of making 

 the approaches adequate for the trade is enormous. Bil- 



* I have quoted in this paragraph a report of my own on the 

 subject. 



