“That a careful survey be made of the sea-bottom in the neighbourhood of our coasts and in Bass’ Straits, and the part suitable for trawling properly charted.  That a few sets of trawling apparatus of the most modern kind be procured by the Government, and Applications invited from the fishermen at the various ports for permission to use these trawls, free of charge, under certain conditions for a limited period.  That the Government fit out a steamer for the purpose of collecting and conveying to Melbourne the fish obtained by the trawlers, the steamer to be provided with cooling chambers, &c.”

A number of different matters were also considered, and, in addition, it was thought that, in order to afford the general public greater facilities for obtaining fish, the sale should not be confined to the metropolitan market.  It was, therefore, recommended that stalls in the various markets for the sale of fish by auction and otherwise should be opened in the leading suburbs of Melbourne; and that the corporation officer in the metropolitan market, to whom the fish was consigned, should regularly distribute to each of these suburban markets such a quantity of fish as experience would show the particular locality demanded.  To a certain extent all this is very satisfactory, but unfortunately select committees have arrived at very similar conclusions over and over again.  All their recommendations have never yet been attended by any practical result, and an adequate fish supply for Australia appears to be as far off as ever.

OUR PRIMITIVE METHODS OF FISH CAPTURE.

About the last place one would expect to come across a really fine piece of delicate humour is amongst official correspondence, and yet in a formal letter from Dr. E.P.  Ramsay, the Curator of the Australian Museum, to Sir Saul Samuel the following passage occurs.  Speaking of the New South Wales exhibits at the International Fisheries Exhibition of London, 1883, the doctor proceeds to remark:—­“People here, imagining that we must have already developed extensive fisheries, from the large collection of food fishes which we exhibit, were not less surprised at our very limited materials and methods of capture than at the immense undeveloped wealth of our fisheries and fish fauna.”  Now, I venture to say that a more unconsciously subtle insinuation at the crude methods of fish capture at present employed in our Australian fisheries was never penned.  But what makes it so keenly effective is that it really hits the right nail on the head.  In giving evidence, also, before Mr. Frank Farnell’s select committee of 1889, Dr. Ramsay, upon being asked whether he thought our fishermen were abreast of the times with regard to appliances, replied:—­“They are about 200 years behind the times.”