The restrictive regulations for aevorang the duties on salt, and for thepre cation of fraud " on the re venue, were y minute and severe in a case where thaw duties were equal to forty times the va lue of the original article, and the temptation con sequently great in proportion. But their' operation, by the last act, is little or not at all felt by the es tablished fisheries, though it still continues to of the individual or occasional fisherman, who cannot afford to keep a stock on band, for which be is ac countable, which is liable to waste, and which for many months be may not have occasion to use. E very one must be convinced that the total repeal of the salt laws would be a great boon to the whole community; but equally convinced that, in the pre sent state of the cowry, the revenue could ill af ford to be diminished to the extent of L1,500,000. If Parliament would consent to a commutation of 5 par cert. on all houses of and above the annual rent of L20, it would probably make good this sum, and would deserve the thanks of the whole community.
The salt laws, however, operate only as a very partial discouragement to the prosecution of the fish eries; and not at all, as already observed, where they are established and conducted on a grand scale. What then, it may be asked, is the real cause of our fisheries not being carried on to a greater extent, at a time when provisions are dear, and work not to be found for multitudes of the labouring dames of the community? It certainly is not that the government is indifferent of, or insensible to, the political import ance of the fisheries. It has not only at different times held out such encouragements as were deem• ed conducive to the end in view, but shown itself so jealous of the interference of our neighbours, as to attempt to establish an appropriate and exclusive fishery in all the seas surrounding our ousts. Thus James I, in 1600, issued a proclamation inhibiting all persons of what nation or quality server, not being natural born subjects, from fishing upon any of the coasts and seas of Great Britain and Ireland, and the isles adjacent, without first obtaining licen• ors from the King, &c. But this, as well as the re petition of it by Charles I., in 1636, was utterly dis regarded by the Continental powers. To enforce this measure, the Dake of Northumberland, as Ad. miral of the Fleet, was sent into the North Sea to compel the Dutch fishermen to take licasees, and pay for the same, but the Ambassador of the States General in England remonstrated against this un precedented proceeding, and disavowed the acts of their fishermen, The attempt to set up a limited fishery, and to prescribe boundaries to the prohibited grounds, met with no better success; but they showed, at least, a desire to prevent the advantages derivable from this element, from falling into the hinds of others. It is probable, however, that these claims were set up with the view rather of maintaining the title of the sovereignty of the seas, than from any contem plation of the national advantages derivable from the encouragement of the fisheries; and more especially for the purpose of preventing any encroachments on the part of the Dutch and French. SI The simple fact we take to be this; that the suc cess of the fisheries, like that of every other specu lation, must depend mainly on the two great hinges on which all commercial enterprises turn—supply and demand ; where these exist to any great extent, and without any material fluctuation, the success of a fishery establishment cannot be doubtful. If, how ever, the supply be not equal to the demand, the ar ticle will be in danger of falling into the hands of monopolists, whose common practice is to add to the 'scarcity, in order to enhance the price. By thus contracting the supply within its natural limits, they not only raise the price, but reduce the demand.
On the contrary, where the supply exceeds the de. mend, the market becomes glutted, the prices are too low to afford a suitable return for the expeudi.
tun', and the adventurers' withdraw their capitals, and turn them into wane other channel. But a cer tain and steady demand creates competition, and re gulates the supply to the wants of the consumer at a fair and reasonable price.
'It is the want, we conceive, of this steady and con stant demand, and not of supply, which has at all times operated to the discouragement •of the British fisheries. That the supply of fish is most abundant, and indeed inexhaustible, on the coasts of Great Britain, has never been called in question. " The coasts of Great Britain," says Sir John Boroughs, doe yield such a continued sea-harvest of gain and -benefit to all those that with diligence doe labour it the same, thatuo.tisse or season in the yeare pass eth away without some apparent means of profitable employment, especially to such as apply •themselves to fishing ; which from the beginning of the yeare unto the latter end, continued' upon some part or other upon our wastes, and these in such infinite shorties and multitudes. of fishes are offered to the takers, as may justly move admiration, not only to strangers, but to those that daily bee' employed a mongst them" That this harvest, ripe for gathering at all seasons of the year—without the labour of til lage, •without expence of seed or manure, without the payment of rent or taxes—is inexhaustible, the extraordinary fecundity of the most valuable spe cies of 'fish would alone afford abundant •proof. To enumerate the thousands, and even millions of eggs which are impregnated in the herring, the cod, the ling, and, indeed, in almost the whole of the es• culent fish, would give but an inadequate idea of the prodigious multitudes in which they flock to our shores; the shoals themselves must be seen to con vey to the mind any just notion of their aggregate mass. The herring, for instance, makes its appear ance in shoals, whose dimensions are measured by leagues and miles, moving steadily along in close ar ray, and in columns of such depth from the surface downwards, as to have obtained the name among the northern nations of herring mountains. These co• lumns advance yearly from the northern seas, early in the spring, with undiminished numbers, though preyed upon by a multitude of enemies, as well from the shore, as in their native element and in the air. Wherever their vast columns proceed, if unmolested by man, they have to sustain constantly the attacks of the grampus, the porpus, the shark, cod-fish, and even haddocks; and if they approach the surface, they are seized by the innumerable flocks of sea gulls, gannets, and other aquatic fowls, which hover along their line of march. Where the spawn of the herring is usually deposited, naturalist& seem not to be agreed ; but as young herring have not been caught either with the old ones, or within the limits of the fishery, and as the shoals invariably proceed from the northward, making their first appearance about the Shetland Islands in the month of April, it has generally been thought that their winter habits. tion is within thearetic circle,. under those vast fields of ice which coverthe northern ocean, where it fat. tens on the awarawaef ahrirapsi and other marine in. mats, which. aboundijr; 'thus 41011, and which afford also the principal food of the whale. Here it is sup posed they deposite their spawn, and, on the return of the sun toward the northern hemisphere, again rush forth in those multitudinous hosts, which ex ceed the power of the imagination to conceive.