HARBOUR ACCOMMODATION IN THE WEST. 
171 
£200,000, as this is, belonging to a bay which has not one single 
harbour to which the boats can run for shelter at low-water in 
stormy weather. For small capitalists this is certainly conducting 
their business at too great a risk. A similar crowding of harbour 
accommodation limits the population at several points along this 
coast, in particular at Mousehole. 
St. Ives is in almost as bad a condition ; and it too has one of 
the largest fishing fleets in the West attached to it, close upon 
£180,000 being invested in the boats belonging to this port. 
With regard to St. Ives, the last Committee say, "As to that 
portion of our coasts between Land's End and the Welsh Coast, 
including the whole of the Bristol Channel, works at St. Ives at 
a cost of £400,000 ; at Lundy Island at a very large but indefinite 
cost, perhaps £1,500,000; at the Mumbles, £400,000; and at 
Swansea at a cost of £750,000, to which the Government is to be 
asked to contribute £420,000, have all been pressed upon your 
Committee as suitable for the requirements of this district. 
Your Committee will not attempt to determine between the relative 
advantages of these several sites ; but the general tenor of the 
evidence is of a character to show that at one of these places a 
harbour should be constructed without further delay." And I 
sincerely hope that they will not be disappointed ; for St. Ives has 
been more than once elated by similar recommendations, which in 
my opinion have sapped the local energies of that district. 
This is an interminable subject, and I must have done. I 
think, however, I have said enough to-night to give some idea of 
the harbour accommodation in the West ; and, as I hinted at the 
outset, the whole question resolves itself into the prosaic one of 
£ s. d. And in my opinion the most important recommendation 
made by the last Committee was "that refuge and shelter should 
be considered more important than mere facilities of trade ; that 
fishery harbours, especially when belonging to or promoted on 
behalf of poor fishermen, should be very favourably considered. 
On this point, your Committee would refer to the extraordinary 
recent development of the fisheries at Aberdeen, Peterhead, and 
Fraserburg, in Scotland ; and at Great Grimsby and Lowestoft, 
in England," following on. And the consequence of harbour im- 
provement is strong evidence in support of the proposition, that 
good harbour accommodation provided at suitable sites for the 
prosecution of our fisheries will in the end surely pay its own 
