C. Fishing us turn from communities that depend on the animals of the land to those depending on the animals of the sea. Geographic environment is as important to such communi ties as to the others. Animal life is more abundant in cold water than in warm. Hence, the best fishing grounds are found where cold water covers shallow feeding grounds, as happens in high latitudes along drowned coasts and on the submerged plateaus known as " banks." When the lands bordering submerged, coasts are so stony, hilly and cold that farming is discouraged, as in Norway, Newfoundland, Lab rador, and Alaska, the inhabitants have a double incentive to gather the harvest of the ocean.
The Newfoundland Fishermen.—Newfoundland is a good example of a fishing community, for 87 out of every hundred men are fishermen, while only 6 or 7 are mechanics, 4 farmers, and 2 miners. About 70 per cent of the island's exports are marine products, while of the eight chief exports all but two—wood pulp for paper and iron ore—are fisheries products. The cod alone furnishes about 88 per cent of the fish exported, so that it is not difficult to see why, to the Newfound lander, the words " cod " and " fish " are practically synonymous. Like the Danish butter makers, and the Kansan cattle ranchers, the fishermen of Newfoundland are so occupied with one industry that they rely on other lands for their food, clothing, fuel, and implements. Consequently, flour, textiles, hardware, salt pork and fishing tackle are imported from the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom.
Of the 37 million dollars' worth of fish exported from this cold barren coast in 1918, 60 per cent found a market in the warm countries of Portugal, Brazil, Spain, Italy, and Greece. This sale is accounted for in three ways: (1) dried fish is a convenient form of food in countries so warm that it is difficult to keep fresh meat; (2) many people in those countries are too poor to afford meat; and (3) the Catholic populations of Latin America and the Mediterranean countries abstain from meat on many days, but can cat fish.
Among fisherfolk there is little need for large cities. The population is scattered along the coast in villages at the heads of the larger bays. Since the fisherman's interests center on the sea, railroad transportation is not well developed. Although Newfoundland is crossed by one main railroad with branches running to the larger communities, it has only 700-800cmiles of track, all government-owned, and many more people are reached by boat than by rail.
Constant exposure to the hardships and dangers of the sea has developed a people who are sturdy and courageous. Their independence is demonstrated by the fact that they form a separate province, hav ing refused to join the Dominion of Canada. People who depend so
entirely upon one resource are bound to meet with periods of want. Such periods are often demoralizing, for poverty causes people to diminish their expenditures on education and other uplifting agencies. When Newfoundland was impoverished by a series of scanty catches of fish from 1860 to 1868, the government made the mistake of giving out too much poor relief, which caused many people to be idle. Today, the government renders better service by encouraging industries other than fishing, and by maintaining hatcheries so that periods of dearth may occur less frequently.
The Fishing Communities of fishing population of Japan illustrates certain geographical principles which are not so apparent in Newfoundland. The Japanese fishing industry owes its importance partly to the summer climate which is too warm and wet to be healthy for either cattle or sheep. Domestic animals are rare and there has, grown up a belief that ordinary meat ought not to be eaten, a beli now incorporated in the Buddhist religion. Nevertheless, the Jap anese, like all other people, need protein in their diet. Beans and other legumes supply part of this, but thanks to Japan's long seacoast. and many bays washed in part by cold currents, she can turn to the sea for fish.
The chief Japanese fishing community is located on Yezo, the north ern island. Its people, like those of Newfoundland, catch cod, herring, and sahnon. Unlike the Newfoundlanders they have little surplus for foreign export because they send the fish to the other islands of their own country. Nevertheless, the Japanese, being a clever, energetic people develop a foreign trade in marine products without losing any of th valuable protein of their fish. This is accomplished by selling she buttons, fish oil, isinglass, and iodine extracted from seaweed.
The Japanese fishing industry does not develop extensive or com plicated business relations. The fishermen are poor and their small surplus enables them to demand from the outside world only a modes supply of cotton grown in Texas and manufactured in Japan, rice an soya beans from Chosen, and kerosene from the ubiquitous can of th Standard Oil Company. Nevertheless, the fishing industry plays a important part in Japanese life. For instance, the two fishing guil have a membership of nearly 800,000, and largely through their influ ence the government has established hatcheries which recently liberate young fish at 29,000 different points. The sturdy Japanese fishermer are one of the reasons why Japan has been able to build up a great mer chant marine and become one of the three chief naval powers.