fishery Board for Scotland. 
xix 
We are aware that it has been seriously questioned whether the 
relief of local taxation from imperial sources is beneficial to a 
locality,* or just to the general taxpayers of the kingdom. But 
we contend that the building of harbours is an incident of the 
national ownership of the fisheries, essentially necessary to the 
realisation of the enormous wealth which is to be drawn from the 
sea, a field fitted and prepared for the cultivation of food as much 
as the land, but which can only be adequately dealt with by 
assistance from imperial sources. 
For details as to the position of the Harbour Works under con- 
struction in 1891, we refer to the Engineers' Eeports printed under 
Appendix E. 
In this connection we may again advert to a fact upon which Fishermen's 
we enlarged in our Eeport for the year 1884, that the most grievous tltles * 
sufferers from our present system of land tenure are the fishermen 
around the coast. A fisherman does not require a title for his 
house different in form from the title which he has to his boat. 
A sufficient title would place at his disposal a fund of credit which 
would be available when his nets were swept away, or he desired 
to assist in building a harbour to help him to prosecute his 
calling, whereas in many cases he is a mere squatter, without any 
title at all to the house he occupies beyond the receipt which he 
holds for the price which he has paid for it. 
4. FISHERMEN'S LOANS. 
In 1886 the Lords of the Treasury, in the exercise of the powers Crofters' 
conferred by the 32nd section of the Crofters Holdings (Scotland) legIslatlon< 
Act and the relative Public Works Loans Act, made an advance of 
£20,000 to the Board to be expended in making loans to fishermen 
for the building, purchase, and repair of vessels, boats, and gear, with 
a view to the encouragement and promotion of the fishing industry 
among the crofters resident in certain parishes in the counties of 
Argyll, Inverness, Ross and Cromarty, Sutherland and Caithness, and 
Orkney and Shetland. The above grant of £20,000 was increased 
to £30,000 in 1887 and 1888. In 1889 the sum granted was 
reduced to £25,000, and further reduced in 1890 to £10,000. 
By your Lordship's directions the Board prepared a series of Rules as to 
rules under which the rate of interest to be charged for loans was loans ' 
2J per cent., subsequently increased by the Treasury to 3J. By 
these rules it was provided that in no case should the advance 
exceed three-fourths of the value of the mortgaged boat, if a new 
one, ur two-thirds, if an old one. So stood the arrangement when 
the subject was discussed in the House of Commons on the 29th of 
August 1887, when, in obedience to a promise then made by the 
Government, the rules were further amended so as to sanction an 
* This subject is fully discussed in the 24th Eeport of the General Board 
of Lunacy, pages 45-56, and the 29th Report, pages 43-45, where it is con- 
clusively shown that the lunacy grant has led to an increase in the number 
of persons registered as lunatics. 
