OUR SEA FISHEEIES. 223 



sessions in the neighbourhood except two rocky- 

 islets. The numher of Prench seamen engaged in 

 this fishery is under 12,000. From 1820 to 1851, 

 the Americans paid $8,000,000 ia bounties on fish, 

 and the same policy is still pursued. Without the 

 aid of bounties the maritime provinces export beyond 

 their own consumption of fish, the value of about 

 eight millions and a haK a year : Newfoundland 

 (1862), $3,760,010; Nova Scotia (1860), $3,094,499; 

 New Brunswick, $750,000 ; Prince Edward Island, 

 $900,000; total, $8,504,509. The figures for the 

 two provinces which export the great bulk of the 

 fish taken from the sea by British Americans, are 

 from actual returns ; those for New Brunswick are 

 given, as an average estimate, in a prize essay pub- 

 lished in that province in 1860; and for Prince 

 Edward Island, are estimated from a return of 1857. 

 The product of the French fisheries in our waters 

 ought to be, according to the number of men they 

 employ, about $3,000,000 a year. If we add for the 

 Americans an equal amount — for we cannot at this 

 moment lay our hands on the figures — we shall have 

 as the whole produce of those fisheries, over and 

 above what is consumed in the maritime provinces, 

 $14,500,000 a year, of which, in spite of the 

 adverse bounties against which she has to contend. 



