In the daily papers giving an account of the Cork Exhibition, appeared the following paragraph: "An interesting exhibit will be a quantity of preserved herrings from Lowestoft, caught off the old head of Kinsale, and returned to Cork after undergoing a preserving process in England."Fish caught off the coast of Ireland by English fishermen, taken to England and cured, and then "returned to Cork" for exhibition! Here is an opening for patriotic Irishmen. Why not catch and preserve the fish at home, and get the entire benefit of the fish traffic? Will it be believed that there is probably more money value in the seas round Ireland than there is in the land itself? This is actually the case with the sea round the county of Aberdeen.and Howth. The profits of their fishing has been such as to enable them, with the assistance of Lord Wemyss, to build for themselves a convenient harbour at Port Seaton, without any help from the Government. They find that self-help is the best help, and that it is absurd to look to the Government and the public purse for what they can best do for themselves.
The wealth of the ocean round Ireland has long been known. As long ago as the ninth and tenth centuries, the Danes established a fishery off the western coasts, and carried on a lucrative trade with the south of Europe. In Queen Mary's reign, Philip II. of Spain paid 1000L. annually in consideration of his subjects being allowed to fish on the north-west coast of Ireland; and it appears that the money was brought into the Irish Exchequer. In 1650, Sweden was permitted, as a favour, to employ a hundred vessels in the Irish fishery; and the Dutch in the reign of Charles I. were admitted to the fisheries on the payment of 30,000L. In 1673, Sir W. Temple, in a letter to Lord Essex, says that "the fishing of Ireland might prove a mine under water as rich as any under ground."But although Scotland imports some 80,000 barrels of cured herrings annually into Ireland, that is not enough; for we find that there is a regular importation of cured herrings, cod, ling, and hake, from Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, towards the food of the Irish people.a large fleet of vessels in full sail was seen from the west coast of Donegal, evidently making for the shore. Many surmises were made about the unusual sight. Some thought it was the Fenians, others the Home Rulers, others the Irish-American Dynamiters. Nothing of the kind! It was only a fleet of Scotch smacks, sixty-four in number, fishing for herring between Torry Island and Horn Head.
The Irish might say to the Scotch fishermen, in the words of the Morayshire legend, "Rejoice, O my brethren, in the gifts of the sea, for they enrich you without making any one else the poorer!"But while the Irish are overlooking their treasure of herring, the Scotch are carefully cultivating it. The Irish fleet of fishing-boats fell off from 27,142 in 1823 to 7181 in 1878; and in 1882 they were still further reduced to 6089.Yet Ireland has a coast-line of fishing ground of nearly three thousand miles in extent.
The bights and bays on the west coast of Ireland--off Erris, Mayo, Connemara, and Donegal--swarm with fish. Near Achill Bay, 2000 mackerel were lately taken at a single haul; and Clew Bay is often alive with fish. In Scull Bay and Crookhaven, near Cape Clear, they are so plentiful that the peasants often knock them on the head with oars, but will not take the trouble to net them.
These swarms of fish might be a source of permanent wealth. Agentleman of Cork one day borrowed a common rod and line from a Cornish miner in his employment, and caught fifty-seven mackerel from the jetty in Scull Bay before breakfast. Each of these mackerel was worth twopence in Cork market, thirty miles off.
Yet the people round about, many of whom were short of food, were doing nothing to catch them, but expecting Providence to supply their wants. Providence, however, always likes to be helped.
Some people forget that the Giver of all good gifts requires us to seek for them by industry, prudence, and perseverance.in which he urged the English people to vie with the Dutch in fishing the seas, and thereby to give abundant employment, as well as abundant food, to the poorer people of the country.
"Look," he said, "on these fellows, that we call the plump Hollanders; behold their diligence in fishing, and our own careless negligence!" The Dutch not only fished along the coasts near Yarmouth, but their fishing vessels went north as far as the coasts of Shetland. What most roused Mr. Gentleman's indignation was, that the Dutchmen caught the fish and sold them to the Yarmouth herring-mongers "for ready gold, so that it amounteth to a great sum of money, which money doth never come again into England." "We are daily scorned," he says, "by these Hollanders, for being so negligent of our Profit, and careless of our Fishing; and they do daily flout us that be the poor Fishermen of England, to our Faces at Sea, calling to us, and saying, 'Ya English, ya sall or oud scoue dragien;' which, in English, is this, 'You English, we will make you glad to wear our old Shoes!'"Another pamphlet, to a similar effect, 'The Royal Fishing revived,'was published fifty years later, in which it was set forward that the Dutch "have not only gained to themselves almost the sole fishing in his Majesty's Seas; but principally upon this Account have very near beat us out of all our other most profitable Trades in all Parts of the World." It was even proposed to compel "all Sorts of begging Persons and all other poor People, all People condemned for less Crimes than Blood," as well as "all Persons in Prison for Debt," to take part in this fishing trade! But this was not the true way to force the traffic. The herring fishery at Yarmouth and along the coast began to make gradual progress with the growth of wealth and enterprise throughout the country; though it was not until 1787--less than a hundred years ago--that the Yarmouth men began the deep-sea herring fishery.
