FISHERY STATISTICS 235 



Fleetwood, or Milford may have come from the 

 Iceland-Fasroe Channel, the North Sea, the West 

 Atlantic, the Bay of Biscay, or the Firth of Clyde. 

 Nevertheless, this information, which for many 

 purposes is perfectly essential, is not to be obtained 

 in any of the official publications of the English 

 fishery authority. 



Fishery statistics have been collected in Scotland 

 since 1809.^ The payment of bounties by the 

 Board of British White Herring Fishery on 

 herring caught, cured, and exported, necessitated 

 the collection of statistics, and these were confined 

 in the first instance to herrings ; but when the cod 

 and ling fisheries were brought under the operation 

 of the bounty system in 1820, account was also 

 taken of the quantities of these fish caught and 

 exported by Scottish fishermen. For a time no 

 general statistics of fish taken were kept, only of 

 those species which earned bounties. When these 

 payments ceased in 1830, the collection of statistics 

 was still continued, and from time to time various 

 reforms were made, which rendered the returns 

 more complete. The general discouragement of 

 fisheries administration affected the system in 

 1857, in which year two Treasury Commissioners 

 (Messrs Bonamy Price and Fred. St John) recom- 

 mended that the Scottish statistics be " made 

 less elaborate." Happily, no attention was paid 



1 See Fulton, Report of the Scottish Fishery Board for 1891, part 

 iii. pp. 171-193. 



