the islands, to send these fish in a fresh state to the market is not so profitable as it is to cure them. Off Barra and off Lewis are the greatest fishing - grounds. With the Barra men it is an old industry. The present generation in Coll and Tyree say that their parents used to speak of the Barra men who came to these islands annually to fish. The Barra men used to fish in the Minch. Now they fish away to the west and south-west of Barra. They say that the fish do not frequent the Minch as before. On the first ground fished by them to the west ward they say the fish have become scarce, and they have had to proceed still farther west. The men who fish off Tyree and Coll mention this same peculiarity occurring there that on the banks near the shore, where they formerly fished, very few fish are now caught. They have to go farther out; it seems as if the fish retreated before the fishermen. Another feature which I think indicates that there is a limit to the number of fish, is, that as the number of boats increases, the number of fish caught by each boat decreases. I was told long ago about two crews of east coast men who fished at Canna every spring, and in the meantime two or three boats began to fish from the north end of Coll, on the south of the same bank on which the Canna boats fished. The result was that the boats from Canna were unsuccessful. The boats that fished from Coll were affected in the same way when the Tyree men began to fish to the west of them. The Eriskay fishermen catch nearly all their fish on the west side. The bulk of the fish caught off Barra is ling, a small proportion is cod and tusk.

"The same is said of Tyree and Coll. On the west of Skye, about Glendale and Waternish, the greater

proportion is cod.

Old fishermen

say that they do not catch more than half the quantity per boat that was fished thirty years ago. The causes assigned for this docroase are the scarcity of herrings, which they say the fish follow, and that Barra men intercept the fish. They used to fish and cure them at Ross of Mull, Uig, Skye, and Harris, but it was stopped. They have begun again two years ago at Harris, but the result has been discouraging. Old Harris men say that there is a great falling off in number and size of the fish caught compared with former times. This branch of ushing has succeeded better at Barra than anywhere else, but even they have their bad seasons. It is discouraging that the fish seem inclined to frequent more distant grounds, and the yield per boat is smaller as the number of boats prosecuting it increases. This fishing requires no extra communication.

"Lobsters.-Generally speaking, it may be said that this fishing began thirty-one years ago. The native fishermen were taught by some crews of Irishmen who then went north. The communication afforded by the steamer then put on by the Great West of Scotland Fishery Company gave facilities for carrying the fish to the market. All the ground on which these fish are found, and which is not too much exposed for the fisherman's creels or traps to remain where placed, has been fished, and, in fact, almost cleaned of these fish. There is not one dozen caught for every ten dozen that were caught between twenty and thirty years ago. The fish are now very small, requiring generally two fish to count as one all fish less than four and a half inches long in the solid part of the body being reckoned a half. On the exposed west of the Hebrides, in summer weather, when creels

can be set without fear of their being swept away, great numbers of good-sized lobsters are caught. But as in summer the risk of death in transit is great and prices rule low, it would be much better that these grounds were left undisturbed as breedingplaces. This fishing cannot be increased; it has been prosecuted to the verge of extinction. It does not suffer for want of communication. "Conger-eels.-These fish, formerly considered as pests, are now the most numerous and profitable fish sent fresh to market. The fishermen now devote much attention to the capture of them. It is said that they are diminishing in numbers. Their distribution seems to be pretty general.

"Halibut are caught in limited

numbers; the Barra men say that they have become very scarce. There is a bank of very limited extent off Glendale where turbot is caught. They are said to be less numerous than formerly. Salmonfishing by bag-net has been tried at the entrance to both Lochmaddy and Loch Boisdale, and in both cases has been a complete failure. Haddocks and whitings are infrequent, and in small numbers. I believe that off the Lewis, north of Stornoway, haddocks abound. There is a lot of coarse fish, such as saithe and skate, at times, which is of no market value.

"Examined by the light of experience, the phrase, 'The great undeveloped fisheries of the Hebrides' seems to be an empty cuckoocry."

When our physical or mental health is impaired we take counsel, not with our casual acquaintance, but with those who have made a life-study of symptoms such as ours; the pity is that, in dealing with our economic diseases, we follow an exactly opposite course, and try the nostrum of him among our friends who has the loudest voice, quite irrespective of any consideration of his knowledge of the case. It is said, with what truth we know not, that the entire complication called the "Crofter question" had its origin, development, and pretended solution in the intelligence of one statesman, and he not the "dove" of his cage the sources of his information are as well known as the nature of the stories which he swallowed, and the people blessed him; what their feeling towards him may be ten years hence we will not venture to predict. gave them "fixity of tenure" and

He

"fair rent"; he robbed them of that which they can never recover, and of which coming years will teach them the value.

Meantime a Commission has been diligently engaged in the revision of rents, and it is believed that, up to the time of writing, the reductions average about 40 per cent, or some 4 per cent less than the fall in the price of Highland stock which occurred subse quent to 1884. It is said that the crofter was "rack-rented," and no doubt if his rent was fair in 1883, it required reduction in 1885. That it was not reduced in proportion to the value of his stock affords a presumption that the former rent was something more than "fair." Those who have read the preceding pages will smile at the idea that persons whose scale of expenditure has reached the limit there indicated can be restored to solvency by a reduction of their rents from £4 to £3, or even to

£2. There may be a little more waste, a little less energy in labour; but to suppose that such measures as those which the Legislature has sanctioned can produce any appreciable effect in averting the coming disaster, is mere folly.

A stage, in short, had been reached when ordinary humanity demanded that the population should be reduced within the possibility of maintenance, and when those who were selected, or who chose, to remain, should have been rearranged in accordance with the views of persons able to judge of the situation; but the opportunity was lost, and we must make the best of what is, at best, a mess.

We have, then, to offer inducements to the population to remove. We have to entice the crofter to extend the area of his holding; we have to teach him some sort of system in his farming; and some think we should try to make a part of the surplus population adopt the fishing business as their sole industry. All before us is difficult, but the last is perhaps the greatest difficulty of all, for we have to deal with a population who are 66 agriculturists and herdsmen" by race instinct-not fishermen at all. Here, then, is the problem which must either be faced now or in a more abstruse form in the future.

The crofter, as we have shown, is sometimes averse to the extension of his holding. In those cases where he desires additional area, he can rarely show his ability to stock it. The squatter is unable, from want of capital, to occupy such a holding as Government would alone be justified in providing for him. The local fisheries, where they exist, are of great ly exaggerated importance: e.g., lobsters are no longer as plentiful as formerly, and are of diminished size and value; cod and ling are

partial and apparently migratory in the Minch-at any rate, they are readily "fished out"; haddocks are mere occasional and sporadic visitors; turbot are nowhere obtained in any quantity; and lastly, the herring, furnishing the great staple industry of the people, is liable, if we may trust the scientific opinion above quoted, to extinction.

Railways and harbours are proposed, the former, ro carry a traffic which does not exist, or to develop one where there are not the conditions of development: the latter, to accommodate the hypothetical fishing - fleets of persons who, if they had their way, would never again shoot not or hoist sail. One result would most certainly ensue: while construction was in progress, wages would be obtainable, and the people would not only be induced to remain at home, but. would increase at the rate which has already produced disastrous overcrowding. When the money was all expended, and the works were complete, it would be found that the pressure on the means of subsistence, so far from being diminished, was actually increased,— that where ten mouths were before, there were now eleven; that where expenditure had been curtailed through poverty, the former scale of living had been resumed.

Lest any should suppose that we speak without knowledge on the subject of local fisheries, it may be well to give some particulars on which others may form a judgment. Twenty years ago the lobster - box contained but three dozen, sometimes less; now, the same box often contains eight dozen, sometimes more; and while those who think that the wholesale capture of immature fish can be pursued indefinitely are wel

come to their opinion, it is one in which we cannot concur, for we are aware of miles of rocky coast which have been so completely exhausted as to require years for

recovery.

Some few years ago-not many --two east-coast boats established themselves at the island of Canna and thence fished the South Minch with such success that two other boats joined them the following season, making their headquaters at the island of Coll; the result was the entire collapse of the adventure, and the retirement of all four. A certain island proprietor employs two fishermen during the summer, and six years ago they suddenly began to capture good shots of fine haddocks; local boats assembled, and for three or four weeks there was a successful fishing, but as suddenly as they came the fish disappeared. The old folks say that no haddocks had been there for forty years before, and there have been none since.

A similar incident was as follows: An east-country boat, prosecuting the great-line fishing from the mouth of Loch Moidart, captured large numbers of haddocks when fishing inshore for bait; so promising was the prospect that an arrangement was concluded whereby the proprietor engaged to afford facilities for smoke-curing, and the crew accordingly returned the following year with the necessary appliances. Not a haddock could they find.

It has been said that a very productive turbot-bank exists off the north-west point of Skye; but, within the last few weeks, the bank was tested by a steam - trawler under local pilotage, with the result that, except some haddocks and a few soles, there was nothing worth the cost of carriage to a distant market. These facts may be doubted, and the writer can only

reply, "Quorum pars magna fui,” while the proofs shall be placed at the service of any courteous inquirer.

That there is fish in abundance outside the Long Island is neither denied nor even doubted; but this is a stormy sea, demanding the most powerful boats and the most perfect appliances. Probably the great western bank will never be adequately fished till it is attacked by steam line-boats, setting many miles of lines and equipped on a scale hitherto unknown in the Highlands. From whence is the capital to come? Last generation witnessed the decay of Ullapool, Shieldag, Stein, and other villages founded by a wealthy and enterprising fishing company; only the other day a similar company passed away from atrophy. Is there here any encouragement to the investor? and are there native fishermen competent to the work? We cannot tell; but at least it is certain that Grimsby men are to be found every season fishing under the eyes of the natives on this very ground, and that, no farther back than last winter, a Scotch boat from the east coast made a handsome profit by fishing from West Loch Tarbert, Harris.

Let the reader who has gone with us thus far cast his eye back on the quotation with which we began, and judge for himself whether recent legislation has or has not proceeded on a mistaken theory.

are

Few will now be found to deny that the presence of subdividers and squatters was the main cause of those lamentable and lawless outbreaks with which we familiar; our fear that similar scenes may recur is shared, as we regret to learn, by some whose official position lends weight to their opinion. A clamour for more land is easily raised "to order," and is not the less dangerous because

those who order it are ludicrously destitute of the most elementary knowledge of the questions in volved. One such person was heard to promise his audience their land at half a crown an acre," while the average rental of the property of which he spoke is rather under Sd. an acre,—of the crofter's land, under 7d.! Probably this orator's conception of the capital-or its equivalent, the labour -required to reclaim moorland was equally "foggy," and he may be interested if we attempt to clear his horizon.

The other day we had an opportunity of half an hour's quiet conversation with the son of a crofter in the parish of Lochs. The lad said the family-i.e. his father, himself, and three brothers-had reclaimed nearly eight acres of mossland, and he described their crop as excellent; "but," he added, "the labour was immense and extended over five years: if we had spent as much time on a farm in Canada, we often think we should have been rich." They had in fact, taking their labour at only eighteenpence a day and their year at six months, so as to allow for six months' fishing, expended £292, 10s. (more than £36 an acre) in reclaiming that which, when reclaimed, did not feed and clothe them for more than six months, if so much These four lads and their father in the Canadian northwest would have owned absolutely 800 acres of fine arable land, with a right of pre-emption (now, alas! about to cease) over 800 acres more; the reader may imagine what their energy, they were plainly ener getic, would have accomplished in five full years on such a holding as that.

It is a pure delusion that the crofter needs, or ever needed, drynursing in making a bargain,

indeed we doubt whether the British Isles contain any class so cautiously circumspect in business matters; but the very element in his character which tends to make him a keen dealer places him at the mercy of any scoundrel who can persuade him that he is misled or has been unjustly treated. When he is offered a loan on easy terms and a good farm elsewhere, the proposal seems to him so palpably one-sided that his suspicions are aroused, and he readily lends an ear to those who tell him that the offer is only made to "get rid of him. It is doubtful whether any argument, however cogent any demonstration, however plain would fully convince him that none desire his prosperity and happiness more earnestly than those who make the generous offer, that none care less for his future than those who would have him remain where he is, subject to the adverse conditions which we have endeav oured to depict, but, on the other hand, open to their manipulation whenever his discontent. can be' made politically useful.

Some little daylight seems lately to have forced its way through the darkness; letters have been received, in hundreds, describing the Government Colonisation Scheme as honest, and the islesman has begun to ask himself whether his sometime leader really cares SO much as he pretends for the comfort of the people?-whether his ends would not perhaps be better served if they remained at home in poverty and progressive degra dation? The ray perchance, pre cedes a dawn when objects, now obscure, shall be clearly discerned by all who have eyes to see when that time arrives, we recommend the agitator, as our American cousins say, to "git"

AN ISLESMAN.