INDIAN FISH AND FISHING. 5 



that Presidency from Sind would subsequently have been 

 even more considerable, but Government decided, in 1867, 

 to admit all salt-fish from foreign ports, where no salt-duty 

 exists, into British India free of duty, to the immense 

 advantage of the Portuguese settlements and the Meckran 

 coast, but completing the ruin of Indo-British fishermen 

 and fish-curers, unless they were advantageously located. 



In olden times, salt was allowed duty-free in British ter- 

 ritory, for salting fish ; but this enactment was repealed 

 (year not ascertained), because the excise officers found that 

 it assisted smuggling, and so necessitated keeping up a 

 larger preventive staff than would otherwise be required. 



The annual sales of Government or monopoly salt in the 

 various districts on the Malabar coast of Madras, along 

 with the value of the salted and dried fish exported by sea, 

 are shown in the following table. The figures demonstrate 

 that but very little, if indeed any, taxed salt was employed 

 by the fish-curers ; while in the native state of Cochin, the 

 sale of salt in ten years, ending 1872-73, owing to aug- 

 mented duty, was reduced by two-thirds, and it is a signifi- 

 cant fact that it was during this very period the great 

 increase in the amount of exported salt-fish began. In the 

 contiguous British district of Chowghaut, although in the 

 year 1872 £1067 Ss. worth of salt-fish were exported, only 

 £46 worth of monopoly salt was disposed of among the 

 entire population. 



The reason why the sale of taxed salt is not in propor- 

 tion to the amount of salt-fish exported, appears capable of 

 the following explanation. Due to a legal decision the 

 people had become entitled to collect salt-earth in order to 

 cure fish for their own consumption ; but, there being no 

 law restricting their disposing of any surplus they possessed, 

 a large trade in selling salt-fish sprang up. This induced 



