xviii 
Tenth Annual Report of the 
Large sums Of these works, Rosehearty in Aberdeenshire and Findochty in 
b° r Parliament 1 Banffshire, were in course of execution by the old Board in 
for fisheries? 11 1882 at the date of its dissolution. The others have been under- 
taken since that date, and the only two still unfinished — Ness 
and Balintore — are well forward towards completion. These new 
harbours have all been of the greatest benefit to the fishermen, 
and our only regret is that the small sum at our disposal prevented 
us from dealing more liberally with the applications for assistance 
which have been received. 
In former reports we have expressed our views on this subject 
with sufficient distinctness. The system of distributing premiums 
or bounties amongst fishermen engaging in the herring fishery is of 
old date, and since 1809, in some cases the sums so voted and 
applied amounted to over £20,000 a year, the total paid for 16 
years (1809-1824) during which the system was in operation 
under the Fishery Board, being £114,514, 7s. 3d. From 1809 to 
1829 large bounties were also granted on barrels of cured herrings 
which received the official brand — amounting for some years to 
as much as £70,000 in the course of a single year, the total for 
the 16 years being £660,587, 9s. 6d. Thus during the 21 years 
which elapsed after the establishment of the Fishery Board in 
1809, the Government of the day advanced from the Imperial 
Exchequer, for the promotion and encouragement of the herring 
fishery in Scotland, the sum of £775,101, or an average of nearly 
£37,000 a year.* Unquestionably it was a sudden fall to reduce 
the public assistance to an annual grant of £3000 per annum. 
When the bounties ceased, this sum was directed to be applied 
— £2500 to Harbours, and £500 in providing materials for the 
repair of the boats of poor fishermen, and since 1850 the whole of 
the £3000 has been applied to harbours exclusively, conform to 
a Treasury Minute to that effect. Since 1881, the sum granted 
has been supplemented out of brand fees. The brand was the 
Board's certificate that, in their officers' opinion, the barrels of fish 
to which it was attached came up to the standard entitling the 
curer to the bounty ; and it had come in course of years to have 
such mercantile value, that when in 1830 the bounty was abolished, 
the brand was still in demand. But in 1858 the Government, on 
the recommendation of a Boyal Commission, fixed for the first time 
a charge of 4d. a barrel, which has always been a cause of discontent 
in the trade. The total sum received from this source has amounted 
since 1858 to £211,249. 
Board's pro- In some years, however, the amount available for harbours from 
posais for surplus brand fees has been very small, and in 1889-90 it amounted 
hSbour exten- to nothing at all. We again take leave to say that the only proper 
sion. wav 0 f dealing with this subject is to abandon the present hand- 
to-mouth system, and fix definitely upon a plan of harbour exten- 
sion all round the coast, to be carried out systematically over a 
series of years. We have not the smallest doubt that if we had 
been able even to promise assistance to some deserving cases, it 
would have been a great stimulus to local effort. 
* A Table printed in the Appendices to our Ninth Eeport, p. 31, gives the 
full details. 
