THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS., SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 22,1883

New Zealand Herald, Volume XX, Issue 6817, 22 September 1883, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS., SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 22,1883

The London Fisheries Exhibition has just closed, and it has been such an important and successful event, and has, with the Associated Fisheries Congress, attracted go much scientific, and practical attention to this great branch of industry, that it is now evident beyond doubt New Zealand made a great mistake in not being.. represented, although colonies" \ were represented whose natural resources in this line could make no such show" as ours. Who at the other end of the world knows anything ;of New Zealand fisheries ? • Even here we do not generally know about them ourselves.. There is no popular conception of the stores of wealth which underlie our coast waters,' Yet there they are, stores of wealth indeed, some day to be turned to account. The colonies, or ' at any rate most of them., are taking great, pains to make their resources known in the old country, in order to attract capital and desirable immigrants. And what class would it, from: various points of view, be more desirable to obtain than a fishing popula-

tion, -which not one. of the colonies, except the North American,, possesses, but for which these islands are. able to offer special attractions. From first to last crowds of fishing, people frequented the London Exhibition. They came up, men and women, by the rail or steamship facilities of these days from the shores and stations, ever so distant, where the catching, curing, and packing of this great article of food are carried On. Numbers of that hardy and industrious class of people would be glad to emigrate, and doubtless many an inquisitive and eager eye examined with this object the exhibits in the colonial courts. But if the. display in the Canadian and neighbouring ones was unquestionably rich and varied, every [British fishing family -who saw the | finny treasures from Newfoundland and Labrador, or Nova Scotia and ' New Brunswick, knew well that they had to be struggled for through tempests and fogs, and a winter charged with severities compared with which their own harsh experiences are moderate. Of course they had heard oi New Zealand, but as certainly heard nothing of its fisheries. "Who in Europe has ? Even Mr, Timms has not yei included them in his publications " Things Not Generally Known." Anc though Victoria and New South "Wales tut slightly endowed in comparison took oare to be represented at thi

Exhibition, New Zealand does not seem to have considered it worth hei while. Yet it is ascertained by the scientific that there ate quite as iranj edible varieties here as in the seas whicli make British fisheries so im portant. Bound our North Islaac are the schnapper, mullet, anc gurnet; in our Southern waters the trumpeter, butter-fishf and red cod Our seas abound with delicious tatiki the hapuku, in flavour resembling th< Murray cod so esteemed in Australia the barracouta,frostfish, mackerel, dory kingfish, warehon, garfish, and other! of the 193 species already described b] the authorities, and referred to by Mi Consul Griffin in the excellent pape which he has prepared for his Govern rnent respecting the fishes of New Zea land. And how they abound rouni these islands can be judged by an; Aucklander who has fished in th Hauraki Gulf. . A valuable accompaniment "of th Exhibition was the Fisheries Congress , at which papers Were read by, amon, others, the Prince of "Wales and Pre fessor. Huxley, commenting on th facts exemplified in the courts am bringing forward much interesting ir formation. The Professor adducei curious evidence about the inexhaus tible supply of some kinds of fish, fo instance, the cod and herring, while c some others, conspicuously the oyste and salmonj there seems to be a de * crease. In some quarters of the ocea: ■ the cod and the herring,, its principa . food, exist in incredible quantities. .. I > is calculated that on the Norwegia: ; coast a single shoal of cod will actual! contain 120 million tons, and that sue < a shoal consumes in one day mor . herrings than are Caught in a yea ; by all the fishing-boats of Norwaj On the other hand, oysters becom . more scarce, while the demand ha

greatly enlarged wi th rapid , means of [transport. We cannot similarly believe that there is it decrease in the stock of salmon. do we think that in England, not-withstanding the contrast in the mimber of inhabitants, that the consumption at all approaches ■what it was some centuries back, -when it was usual for apprentices' indentures to contain an agreement that they should not be- fed on salmon above four, days in the week. And although factories and 5 sewers have banished this king of fishes from English rivers, where it once abounded, it swarms in ( the rivers of many other countries— for instance, in arctic America, where sewers or factories are likely to disturb it. Great exports are now made to England in the frozen state* from Hudson's Bay and Alaska, and in the canned way from. the Eraser River and Columbia River, v;'. But though fisheries are:■ so important, the art of fishing has stood still yet it would seem not quite so much' among the Chinese as among our Caucasian races, for at the London Exhi-. bition superior skill was displayed in some of the Chinese contrivances. Even

the exhibits for fish-taking, ; obtained from rude maritime tribes ■' like the Eskimo and our own Polynesian islanders, are said to be quite as advanced specimens of intelligent design. Professor Huxley leans oard on the fact that with all the progress of clvilised man in other respects, his arrangements for ■ collecting the .treasures of the deep should have undergone no development through thousands of years. And he dwells on the different productiveness of sea and land ; how an area of good fishing ground produces a far greater quantity of food for man, and with a contrast in the trouble required, for while the land also needs to be carefully tilled and cultivated, the crop of the sea has only to be gathered —facts and arguments which naturally suggesting themselves to anybody giving the subject consideration, we have repeatedly urged in these columns. It is indeed monstrous that with all the scientific research, engineering . help, and mechanical invention bestowed on

agriculture, that the fisheries should have been neglected, and should Only now, after thousands of years, have tlie prospect of some similar attention from the knowledge of the age. Certainly it would, be wise to discriminate between the industrial gatherings, so frequently held, and not extend our indifference to those capable of rendering us practical service. A New Zealand court in that London Exhibition would very likely have drawn to our shores numbers of fishing people from the old country to develope for us here a great industry and a settled seafaring population, without which we can never create a navy, so specially needful for this island community in the near future of the South Pacific,