MR WALPOLE ON CONDITION OF FISHERMEN. 77 



produces £9 or £4 in white- fishing. In herring-fishing, again, 

 a crew of two boys and a man will make £9 in a single night 

 in the Forth, and this in the year 1898. In most places they 

 have enforced idleness from storms, and there is little for them 

 to do on shore. No other class of working men, indeed, more 

 frequently have such periods of rest, and the fishermen are 

 thus conspicuous features in the every day life of their towns 

 and villages. Some compensation is in this way given for their 

 hazardous calling, and for their courageous battle with the 

 elements, and, it cannot be doubted that it is the interest of 

 the nation to encourage them even more than those who follow 

 other trades. 



The experienced remarks of the late Mr Spencer Walpole 

 on the subject of the British fisherman's financial condition^ is 

 worthy of the earnest attention of all interested in the Fisheries, 

 and more especially of that class whose persistent aim, unless 

 we are to suppose utter incapacity, is less to benefit the Fisheries 

 and fisherman than to make progress — political or otherwise — 

 in a different direction. Every word of Mr Walpole's remarks 

 applies equally to Scotland as to England, and in every essential 

 particular can be supported from personal experience. He 

 specially points out the errors into which Prof. Leone Levi fell 

 when he supposed that the fisherman was not half so well off as 

 the ordinary agricultural labourer. He truly says " I do not 

 think that anyone who has any acquaintance with the fishing 

 community will endorse that statement. If you examine an 

 ordinary fisherman's dress, you will find it warmer and more 

 costly than that of the labourer ;... he consumes a larger propor- 

 tion of animal food than the labourer ;... you will find rows of 

 cottages not merely occupied, but owned, by fishermen, built or 

 purchased out of the profits of the fisheries.... Many of them 

 own their own nets and lines, and some of them have a share 

 in the boats in which they sail.... Many of the masters are boat- 

 owners, with £250 to £1500 of capital — who have begun their 

 lives as ordinary fishermen." 



In communities of sober and industrious fishermen comfort 

 is almost always present, and want unknown. 



1 Official Rept. Internat, Fish, Exhib. vol. xiii., pp. 173—178, 1884. 



