2 THE BRITISH FISH TRADE. 



able omission from them. While on every other subject he 

 finds information, which is usually full and which is seldom 

 inexact, on one subject he fails to obtain any information 

 whatever. The editor of the Statistical Abstract does not 

 seem to be aware that a large number of persons in the 

 British Islands are dependent on fishing for their liveli- 

 hood ; that a considerable proportion of the food of the 

 inhabitants of these islands consists of fish ; and that one 

 of the most important trades of the kingdom is the trade 

 in fish. The quantity of fish which is imported into these 

 islands from abroad or which is exported from them is 

 included in the statistical abstracts. But on the much 

 greater questions which are connected with the fisheries — 

 the employment which they afford, the capital which they 

 attract, and the wealth which they produce — the Statistical 

 Abstract is uniformly silent. 



This silence arises from no fault of the editor of the 

 Abstract. He gives no information on the subject of 

 fisheries, because no full information is forthcoming which 

 is worth publishing. The Fishery Board of Scotland, 

 indeed, annually publishes elaborate and detailed accounts 

 of the Scotch herring fishery. The Irish Inspectors of 

 Fisheries also compile once a year some statistics — which, 

 however, are admittedly imperfect — to illustrate the de- 

 velopment, or rather the decay, of the Irish fisheries. But 

 in England itself little information is afforded to the student 

 who wishes to ascertain the condition of the English 

 fisheries. The Inspectors of salmon fisheries are, indeed, 

 required to report annually on the state of the English 

 salmon fisheries. But the salmon fisheries of England and 

 Wales stand in the same relation to the sea-fisheries of the 

 country as Croydon to London, or Rutland to Yorkshire. 

 The state of the more important fisheries has to be ascer- 



