HARBOUR ACCOMMODATION IN THE WEST. 
167 
affects a class deserving of our support — a class which owing to 
their occupation are not well able to advocate their own wants — a 
class which are of the first importance to the state in supplying 
food to the million, I mean the fishing population. The com- 
mercial maritime interests are tolerably well looked after by 
shipowners and their agents, gentlemen who as a rule know 
how to take care of themselves ; but the same is not the case with 
the fishing population. Somehow or other there never has been any 
such organization or co-operation of labour in the fishing business 
as there has been in the merchant service. Each six or seven men 
owe the amount of their earnings to their own exertions; and 
being independent in this way, and also moving from point to 
point along the coast, they have been unable to establish any sort 
of combination for the furtherance of their interest. The 
Fisheries Exhibition has done much to create an interest in 
fishery matters. It has also revealed the vastness of the traffic, 
and the result already has been that the attention of capitalists has 
been turned to the development of this industry. The con- 
struction of harbours where wanted for the fishermen along our 
coasts is really the creation of a valuable property, and consequently 
a direct gain to the nation. Allow me, in illustration of this 
statement, to read an extract from the evidence given by Mr. 
W. Spears, a fisherman of North Sunderland, before the Select 
Committee of the House of Commons. (Question 8764, page 367.) 
And if you question fishermen on our own coasts, you will find 
that they have the same story frequently to tell. Through the 
kindness of Mr. Francis Brent, I have ascertained that the 
number of fishing boats of the first and the second class at the 
various Devon and Cornwall Ports is as follows at this date : 
On the South Coast between Brixham and Penzance : 
Trawlers and 
First-class Boats. 
Hookers and 
Second-class Boats. 
. 40 
. 132 
Brixham 
Dartmouth district . 
Plymouth, including 
J . 87 
. 150 
. 177 
173 
Cawsand & the Yealm 
Fowey 
Falmouth 
Penzance 
20 
14 
15 
172 
40 
444 
Total 
463 
1001 
