THE BRITISH FISH TRADE. 6i 



briefly the salient features of the fish trade of the United 

 Kingdom. With this purpose an attempt has been made 

 to show how fish are caught, to estimate the amount of 

 capital embarked in the fisheries, the extent of the employ- 

 ment which they afford, and the value of the food which 

 they produce. The fish have subsequently been followed 

 from the markets to the consumer ; and the manner in 

 which their distribution is effected has been described. 

 This account, however, would be hardly complete if it were 

 to stop at this point. Most people who pay any attention 

 to the subject of fisheries, are occupied rather with the 

 future than with the present condition of the industry. It is 

 hardly possible to take up a paper, or to hear a conver- 

 sation which relates to fishery matters, without listening to 

 or reading gloomy anticipations of the approaching ex- 

 haustion of the fish of the sea ; and it is therefore necessary 

 before concluding these pages to make a few remarks on this 

 part of the subject. 



And, in the first place, people do not seem to be 

 aware that the predictions which are freely hazarded 

 of the approaching exhaustion of the sea are not new. 

 They are almost as old as English literature. Three 

 hundred and thirty years ago a Bishop of St. David's 

 declared that the scarcity of herrings was due to the 

 covetousness of fishers, who in times of plenty took so 

 many that they destroyed the breeders. The good 

 Bishop who pronounced this positive opinion was burnt 

 shortly afterwards at Carmarthen for heresy. But his 

 opinions on fishery questions survived his martyrdom ; and 

 a few years afterwards Parliament complained that "in 

 divers places they fed swine and dogs with the fry and 

 spawn of fish ; and otherwise, lamentable and horrible to be 

 reported, destroy the same, to the great hindrance and 

 decay of the Commonwealth." " Lamentable and horrible 



