FISHERY STATISTICS 53 



been hampered by want of funds. The Treasury 

 offered j^'soo (afterwards increased to ^700) a year for 

 statistical purposes — a totally inadequate sum when 

 distributed as wages among the 157 'collectors' 

 scattered round our coasts. The duties of these col- 

 lectors were to send monthly returns of thirteen 

 different kinds of ' wet fish ' and three kinds of shell- 

 fish, stating the quantities landed and the market 

 value at the port. They had no powers to demand 

 information from anyone, or to examine books or 

 catches or market- and railway-returns ; and they were 

 subject to but little if any supervision. 



Not only were these statistics untrustworthy, even 

 as a simple record of the quantities of fish landed, 

 but they were rendered practically useless for exact 

 inquiries concerning the decline of the fisheries, 

 through the neglect of any precautions to discriminate 

 between the catches in the home waters and those on 

 distant fishing-grounds of a totally different character. 

 Fish from Iceland, Far5e, and the Bay of Biscay, as 

 these areas were successively exploited, all went to 

 swell the totals in the single column of ' fish landed,' 

 thus rendering it quite impossible to determine the 

 state of the fishery on the older fishing -grounds 

 around our coasts. Taking the statistics as they 

 stand, however, we find that during 1886- 1888 the 

 average quantity of fish annually landed on the coasts 

 of England and Wales amounted to 6,263,000 cwt., 

 valued at ;£"3, 805,000 ; during 1890-1892, 6,184,000 cwt., 

 valued at £4,496,000 ; during 1900-1902, 9,242,000 cwt., 

 valued at ;£'6, 543,000. 



The average price of fish per cwt. in these periods 

 was consequently 12s. 2d. in 1886-1888, 14s. 6|d. in 

 1890-1892, and 14s. 3|d. in 1900-1902. The census 

 returns indicate that the population of England 

 and Wales had risen in the meantime from about 

 28,000,000 in 1887 to 29,000,000 in 1891, and 32J millions 



