FINANCIAL RESULTS OF FISHERIES EXHIBITION, AND DISPOSAL OF SURPLUS.
After all the affairs of the Exhibition of 1883 had been wound up, including the financial accounts, a meeting of the General Committee was held on Saturday, March 22nd, 1884, to receive the Report of the Executive Committee. Details of receipts and outlay were presented. Reference was made to the wide interest awakened by the Exhibition, the attendance of fishermen from many lands, as well as from all parts of the United Kingdom, and the success of the attempt to sell fish at prices hitherto unknown in our great towns. The Report and Balance Sheet having been presented, the Prince of Wales thus spoke:—
"You have all listened, I am sure, with great interest to the report that has been read to you by the Chairman of the Executive Committee. From what we have heard, I think it is patent to all that the late Fisheries Exhibition has in every point of view been a success. It has been a financial success, and it has also been a success as regards the enormous number of people who have visited it, not only of our own countrymen and those from our colonies, but from every part of the globe. It is unnecessary for me on an occasion of this kind to enumerate the objects of this Exhibition, but I maintain that its two salient objects—viz., the scientific and practical ones—have fully justified its existence: its scientific object by the display of every possible kind of modern appliance, thus showing the great improvements that have been made in the fishing industry of the world; and its practical object because it not only showed to our own countrymen, but to all the world, what a valuable means of subsistence fish is. Many, I believe, had no idea of its value; while the existence of varieties of fish was made known which had not even been heard of by the great majority of people. Well, gentlemen, you have all heard that there is a surplus amounting to £15,243, and the question is naturally how to employ that sum. In the address that I read to you at the closing of the Exhibition I held out some hope that this might be applied in a useful and practical manner, and I would therefore now suggest to the General Committee that one of the best objects by which to perpetuate the results of this successful Exhibition would be to appropriate, say, about £10,000 to alleviate the distress of widows and orphans of sea fishermen. I use the words 'alleviate the distress' because I do not wish to bind any of you to our erecting an orphanage. That would cost a great deal of money, and, I think, would possibly be a mistake. If we were to embark in any great building enterprise of that kind, and in future find ourselves in debt, we should have frustrated the very object we have in view, viz., supporting the widows and orphans of those brave men who peril their lives at sea. I would also suggest that £3000 should be given as an endowment to a society, which might be called the Royal Fisheries Society. What shape that might take will be for your future consideration; but possibly some society might be founded under such a name or character, similar to the Royal Agricultural Society. We shall then have a surplus of about £2000 left, which, I think you will all agree, will be a good thing to keep in reserve. It would be for the general public in future to show their interest in this scheme by supporting it to the best of their ability. I beg, therefore, to move the following resolution:—'That a sum of £10,000 be invested, with a view to applying the proceeds to the assistance of families who have suffered the loss of a father or husband in the prosecution of his calling as a sea fisherman; and that a further sum of £3000 be applied to the formation of a Fisheries Society, such as was suggested by His Royal Highness the President in his reply to the report of the Executive Committee on the 31st of October, 1883.'"
That suggestion was that a society should be formed, having for its object the collection of statistics and other information relative to Fisheries; the diffusing among the fishing population of a knowledge of all improvements in the methods and appliances of their calling; the discussion of questions bearing upon fishing interests: we wish we could add, "the interests of the public," in obtaining more and cheaper fish!