ii8 THE SEA FISHERIES 



the payment of the bounties was suspended. This suspension 

 lasted until 1770 ; during this period the number of busses declmed 

 to 263, 202, 85 and 19. The adventurers now petitioned Govern- 

 ment to reduce the bounty to 30s. per ton, but to pay it regularly. 

 This was done, with the result that the number of busses increased 

 as follows in the years 1771 to 1783 : 29, 169, 190, 249, 281, 294, 

 240, 220, 206, 181, 136, 147 and 153. The decrease during the last 

 seven years is attributed to the Dutch war, which cut off the supply 

 of materials from the Baltic ; to the American war which enhanced 

 the price of materials for the fisheries ; to the terror of privateers 

 which swarmed on the coast ; to the pressing of men for the Navy, 

 and partly to the failure of herrings on the north-west coast of 

 Scotland ; and finally to the order of the Commissioners of the 

 Customs at Edinburgh prohibiting the busses from fishing off the 

 Irish coast under penalty of forfeiting the bounty. 



The Committee of 1785 had no hesitation in reporting that the 

 system of the salt laws is one of the principal reasons why the 

 fisheries of Great Britain have never been carried to the height of 

 prosperity and advantage of which they were capable. 



Adam Smith, by a deliberate manipulation of statistics to serve 

 his argument, endeavoured to throw discredit on the bounty 

 system. He stated that in the year 1759 each barrel of merchant- 

 able herring produced by the buss fishery cost the Government in 

 bounties alone £159 7s. 6d. A reference to the official statistics 

 shows that Smith selected the year when both the number of busses 

 and the produce of the fisheries were at their lowest ebb. Smith 

 forgets or ignores the fact that the failure or success of the bounty 

 system does not depend on the amount of bounty paid per barrel 

 of herring in a single year arbitrarily selected, and that year the 

 least effective from a fishery standpoint. It must not be forgotten 

 that the busses only reckoned one voyage per annum for the purpose 

 of establishing a claim to the bounty, and this voyage was not to 

 be of more than three months' duration. Many busses made a second 

 or even third voyage. Smith points out in another argument that 

 the busses in the eleven years, 1771-1781, caught only 378-347 

 barrels but it is more than probable that the actual catch was at 

 least double that amount, the yield of second and subsequent 

 vovaees not counting towards the claim for bounty. 



The Committee of 1785. in their third report, say they cannot 

 represent the buss fishery as being in a flourishmg state ; for in 

 the vear 1782 there appear to have been but 135 busses, navigated 

 by aC 2000 fishers, fitted out from all the ports of North Britain^ 

 " Your Committee, however, are sensible, this bounty has not 

 been entirely misapplied ; many hands have been framed to the 



