12 MAIiAYAN FISHES. 



While these are the conditions under which fish are transported 

 a few miles in this country, we are indebted to a eingle Cold Storage 

 Company for the privilege of being able to purchase, if we can 

 afford it. fish, meat, game, butter and fruit, imported in re- 

 frigerated chambers from Great Britain, the United States, Aus- 

 tralia and China. 



Briefly, it amounts to this. We can eat foreign fish and 

 foreign fowl but not the fresh produce of Malaya. Hundreds of 

 tons of prime fish are caught every year on the East coast, where 

 the inexhaustible sup]3lies of the China sea are available, but all 

 this fish is dried for export for lack of cold storage transport, 

 though much of it is caught within 24 hours steam of Singapore. 



There can be little doubt that the whole future of the perish- 

 able food business in this country depends on cold storage, but 

 there is no decided opinion as to the part that the State should 

 take in the development of the trade. 



It was realised many years ago, that for sanitary reasons the 

 ordinary shop house was not a suitable place in which fresh meat, 

 fis'h, etc., could be exposed for sale, and, in the Malay States, the 

 sale of such perishable produce is confined entirely to the markets 

 built by the State. 



It would seem, therefore, to be but reasonable and logical for 

 the State to go a step further, and instal cold storage in the markets, 

 and to rent space to the retail dealers in the same way that stalls 

 are rented. 



The State owns the railways which run from the coast to the 

 market towns and the installation of refrigerated vans on the 

 railways would appear to be a natural development of a State en- 

 terprise, as it is in other countries with State Eailways. 



This disposes of the problem as far as the Colony and the 

 West Coast States are concerned but the problem on the East coast 

 is quite different. 



The development of the States on the East coast has been 

 retarded because they possess no natural ports and harbours which 

 can be entered during the Korth East monsoon. 



Though the deep sea can be fished all through the N. E. 

 Monsoon and steamers run regularly up the East coast to Bangkok 

 and Saigon, no fishing is done because the fishermen live on the 

 mainland. A heavy sea breaks on tlie shallows and sandbanks 

 which extend from the coast, and dangerous rollers break on the 

 bars wliich guard the emtrance to the rivers. 



Further out, in twenty fathoms or so, the seas are regular, and 

 conditions for fishing far better in every way than they are in a 

 strong wind in the English Channel or in the North Sea. 



