In 1786 " The British Society for ex tending the Fisheries and improving the Sea Coasts of the Kingdom" was incorpo rated, and a joint-stock was subscribed " for purchasing land, and building thereon free towns, villages, and fishing stations in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland." This joint-stock was raised by the subscriptions of a few individuals, who did not look for any profitable re turn. The members of the society were chiefly proprietors of estates, and their object was the improvement of their pro act was passed in 1808 for the regulation of the fisheries. The bounty was again raised to 608. per ton on decked vessels of not less than 60 tons, burthen, with an additional bounty of 20s. per ton for the first thirty vessels entered in the first year. Premiums amounting to 3000/. were also granted for boats of not less than 15 tons' burthen. This act'prescribed regulations for fish ing, curing, inspecting, and branding her rings, and a board of seven commissioners was appointed for administering the law. This act, which was at first passed for a limited time, was made perpetual in 1815 (55 Geo. III., c. 94). The tonnage bounty had in the mean time been ex tended to fishing-vessels of not less than 45 tons' burthen. During the year 1814 only five vessels had been fitted out for the fishery from Yarmouth, and not one for the deep-sea fishery from any other port of Great Britain. For the inspec tion and branding of herrings the whole coast of Great Britain was divided into districts. In each of these officers were appointed to oversee the operations of the fishermen, and to prevent frauds in re gard to the bounty. The principal regu lations affecting the curing of herrings were borrowed from the practice of the Dutch fishermen. In 1817 a further boon was granted to the fishermen by allowing them the use of salt duty free ; a peculiar advantage, which ceased in 1823 by the repeal of the duty on that article.
The impolicy of granting these boun ties was at length seen and acknow ledged. In 1821 the tonnage bounty of 60s. above mentioned was repealed ; the bounty of 4s. per barrel, which was paid up tb the 5th of April, 1826, was thereafter reduced ls. per barrel each succeeding year; so that in April, 1830, the bounty ceased altogether. This alter ation of the system was not productive of any serious evil to the herring fishery. The average annual number of barrels of herrings cured and exported respectively in the five years that preceded the alter ation was 349,488 and 224,370. In the five years from 1826 to 1830, while the bounty was proceeding to its annihilation, the average numbers were 336,896 cured, and 208,944 exported ; and in the five years ending the 5th of April, 1837, the average numbers were 396,910 barrels cured, and 222,848 exported. In 1842 the quantities (barrels) of white herrings cured, &c., in Great Britain (so far as the same bad been brought under the cog nizance of the commissioners of the her ring fishery under 1 Wm. IV. c. 54), were as follows:— Cured. Exporffro Gutted. . 489,583 283,583Ungutted . 178,219 1206 667,802 248,789 The principal countries to which her rings were exported in 1842 were Bands.
Prussia 73,915 Other parts of Germany 28,335 Italy 25,105 France . . . . 19,659 British West Indies 3,526 Mauritius . . . 2,258 In 1843 the number of vessels which cleared outwards for the British Herring Fishery was 333, of 7316 tons, and the crews amounted to 1150 men. The netting which they possessed was 481,906 square yards, and they took out 121,724 bushels of salt and 60,904 barrels. The total num ber of barrels of cured herrings, landed during the season was 57,539, of which 55,949 were gutted and packed within twenty-four hours after being caught. The gross total of white herrings cured by fish-curers on shore in the ports of Scotland was 565,880 barrels, out of which number 383,231 contained herrings gutted and packed within twenty-four hours after they were caught. There
were besides, it is computed, herrings sold in a fresh and cured state to the value of 114,5381. The number of bar rels of white herrings which were entitled to be branded with the official brand was 162,713, and 114,614 barrels were assorted and cured according to the Dutch mode, and were branded accordingly.
The number of boats and of fishermen, and other persons employed in taking, gutting, curing, and packing cod and her rings in 1832 and 1842 were as follows:— 1832. 1842.
Boats 11,059 12,479 Fishermen . . . 49,164 52,998 CooPersr 31,402 86,733 packers, &c. . .
The removal of the bounty has been attended with an improvement in the number of the fishermen generally, and in Scotland the fishermen have been able, from the fair profits of their business, to re place the small boats they formerly used by new boats of larger dimensions, and to provide themselves with fishing materials of superior value. In fact, the tonnage bounty system was an encouragement to idleness and perjury.
In 1833 a select committee of die House of Commons was appointed to in quire into the distress which was at that time said to affect the several fisheries in the British Channel. One cause of this distress, it was alleged, was the inter ference of the fishermen of France but by a convention with France, con cluded in 1839, limits are now established for the fishermen of the two countries. Another cause of the unprosperous state of the fishermen was stated in the re port of the committee to be " the great and in ' scarcity of all fish which breed in the el, compared with what was the ordinary supply fifteen to twenty years We do not at present hear of the dis tress amongst the fishermen on our coasts. The facilities of communication with po pulous inland districts have greatly ex tended the market for fish, and in parts of the country in which fish had scarcely been at all an article of food. In London, where the facilities for obtaining a supply of fish are nearly perfect, there is one dealer in fish to four butchers, and fish is hawked about the streets to a great ex tent; but in Warwickshire the proportion of dealers in fish to butchers is as 1 to 27, and in Staffordshire 1 to 44. In the borough of Wolverhampton there was only 1 fish-dealer in 1831, but there were 46 butchers. It is evident that when the large masses of population in the midland and northern manufacturing districts ac quire a habit of co • fish as an variety to their ordinary of food, a great impetus will be given to the fisheries on all our coasts. The rapid means of transport afforded by railways enable the inhabitants of Birmingham and London to consume cod and other fish caught in the Atlantic by the fishermen of Galway and Donegal. This improve ment in the means of communicating with the best markets is a great boon. The fishermen who supply the London market instead of returning to Gravesend or other ports of the Thames and Med way, for instance, put their cargoes already packed in hampers on board the steam-boats which pass along the whole eastern coast as far north as Aberdeen ; or they sometimes make for Hull or some other port in the wiighbourhood of the fishing-ground, and there land their cargoes, which are conveyed to London in the course of a few hours or to other great inland markets in a still shorter time. Fast sailing cutters are sometimes employed to take provisions to the boats on the fishing-ground, which bring back the fish taken by each. In consequence of these arrangements the fishermen are sometimes kept at sea for several months together.