INTRODUCTION. xni 



of this to cure fist as it does of tlie excised salt. If we omit the extra weight of this salt earth we 

 find the cost of 328 lbs. of fish thus prepared costing 1 anna instead of 32 annas, or should twice 

 the weight of this salt to the weight of the fish be used, as is done in the better description, the 

 cost is 2 annas instead of 32, or of a difference of 1600 per cent, in the production. The chief 

 consumers of this article are the poorer classes, and were the taxed salt to be employed salt fish would 

 be entirely beyond the reach of those who now purchase it. 



The following figures show how the salt-fish trade has flourished on the Western coast of 

 Madras where the people could collect the salt earth for curing the fish and how it has languished on 

 the Eastern coast where this has not been permitted. The exports show as follows, the value being stated 

 in rupees : — 



5 years ending 1857-58, Western coast, 321,950 : Eastern coast, ? 

 „ 1862-63, „ „ 628,624: „ „ ? 



„ 1867-68, „ „ 1,118,991: „ „ 17,531. 



„ 1872-73, „ „ 1,780,888: „_ „ 45,137. 



In the last year the return from Travancore not having been received, an average of the five 

 preceding years, or 3Hs 133,237, has been added to the total. 



It appears, in short,* that the fisheries are in a very depressed state wherever salt is expensive 

 or the use of the untaxed salt earth prohibited : that they are flourishing where salt is cheap or the use 

 of untaxed salt earth permitted : that monopoly salt is scarcely purchased for the purpose of curing fish 

 eaten by the majority of the consumers, owing to the enormous rise it occasions in the price of the 

 article : that fish is extensively cured with salt earth where permitted, but that such a food is a fruitful 

 cause of disease as the article will not keep for any lengthened period, but it is preferable to the simply 

 sun-dried article : that where the use of salt earth is prohibited, fish curers are driven to dry their 

 fish in the sun, give up their trade, or purchase monopoly salt, and should they do this last they have 

 to keep down the price of the article by reducing the cost of the raw fish and employing a minimum 

 amount of salt. 



