Fishery Board for Scotland. 
xxi 
From this return it will be seen that at 31st Dec. 1891 there 
were 39 cases of arrears of loans which were in such a position that 
the Board considered the balances due as irrecoverable. In 37 of 
these cases the boats which were mortgaged to the Board in 
security for the loans were taken possession of and sold. Of these 
boats, 16 were voluntarily surrendered by their owners because 
they found themselves quite unable to fulfil their obligations to 
the Board, 15 were taken possession of by the Board's fishery 
officers after the defaulters had been threatened with proceedings 
for recovery of arrears, and 6 were abandoned by their crews 
and left uncared for, as it frequently happened that the crews 
quarrelled among themselves, and left the boats generally in a very 
neglected condition, and thus made it increasingly difficult to 
realise anything like a fair price for them. 
5. STATISTICS. 
When the Board took office the only available statistics related Collection of 
to cured fish — herring, cod, and ling — the number and value of the f^^f 
boats engaged in the fisheries, and the number of men and boys ated by Board, 
employed. It was obvious that statistics so imperfect could not 
accurately represent from year to year the true condition of the 
fishing industry, and the Board lost no time in organising the 
collection of statistical information, through its fishery officers, in 
regard to the quantity of fish landed, and their approximate value, 
shell-fish included. The system as organized by this Board was sub- 
sequently adopted by the Board of Trade for the rest of the United 
Kingdom, and fishery statistics relating to the whole of the United 
Kingdom are now published monthly, which has been followed 
by the collection of similar statistics in various Continental States. 
This has entirely superseded the old method of obtaining such 
information — which was to appoint a Royal Commission to travel 
round the coasts and collect testimony 3 the testimony so collected 
being generally tendered by interested parties, coloured by 
prejudice excited by some popular agitation active at the time, 
and largely composed of evidence objectionable on the score of 
hearsay, uninformed and misleading. Now, however, we know 
with an approximation to accuracy how the facts actually stand, 
and some of the more important inferences which may be drawn 
from these statistics may be here briefly indicated. 
1. The first is the growing difficulty which this country feels, Continental 
and we fear will continue to feel, in maintaining its hold on the leased 
Continental markets, and the importance of discovering new markets foreign com- 
and probably new modes of manufacture. Hitherto the herring petition- 
fishery has been the fisherman's great stand-by. It is that which 
puts most money in his pocket, and chiefly maintains his family. 
But it absolutely depends on the Continental market. Within the 
past ten years Sweden and Norway have been making great strides 
in the cure of herring. Sweden seems to experience a periodical 
B 
