Ebook Fish Transport and Fish Markets

If, however, I were to attempt any elaborate review of the fish trade of these islands, I should probably exceed my own powers and I should certainly exhaust your patience. Instead of doing so, therefore, I shall confine most of the remarks I propose to make to you this afternoon to some of the salient points connected with the internal traffic of fish in this country.

Before doing so, however, I should like to make one or two observations respecting our foreign trade in fish, because that subject, I think, is one which is not fully understood. Last year we imported into this country fish worth, in round numbers, £1,660,000, and we exported from the country fish worth £1,820,000. In point of value, therefore, the exports of fish almost balance the imports - there is no great difference between the two. In point of quantity, however, there is a very great difference. I believe that the amount of fish imported into this country was about 45,000 tons, whilst the amount of fish which we sent abroad probably reached 110,000 tons. The fish which we imported from abroad, at any rate that proportion of fish which the Board of Trade includes in their trade returns, consisted almost entirely of salt fish - most of the salt fish which we eat on the first and last days of Lent was presumably taken off the coasts of Norway and Newfoundland. But I believe there is a considerable import of fish which is not recognized by the Board of Trade. For instance, the large salmon which arrive in the autumn in London, which you may see in any fishmonger's shop in London, come from the Rhine.