"III. Time for repaying any loan not exceeding ten years.
"IV. Repayment by half yearly instalments with interest at the rate of 2.5 per cent. per annum.
THE ARAN FISHERIES.
"Note.—It must be observed that loans under rule No. 2. can only be recommended under very exceptional circumstances, and to a very limited extent, as the funds available for loans for new vessels are quite insufficient to meet large demands. It will, therefore, be impossible for the inspectors to do more in carrying out this rule than to recommend loans on the security of vessels in a few cases only, where very exceptional circumstances exist, and only in cases of new first-class fishing vessels being provided for with thoroughly experienced fishermen of good character.
"No loans for the purchase of gear will be made without personal security, as laid down by the rules already in force, see No. 1.
"By order,
"George Coffey,
"Secretary.
"Fisheries Office, Dublin Castle, February, 1886."
IRISH FISHERIES—IRISH PARLIAMENT.
Of the immensity of the fisheries we can form no estimate. But to the islanders the fisheries are worthless without boats, and without the means of obtaining boats; without funds, and without the means of obtaining funds. Except "under very exceptional circumstances, and to a very limited extent," they are unable to launch out into the deep and let down their nets for a draught. It is said by one party that a different state of things would prevail had the Irish people an Irish Parliament. That may be so and it may not be so; but one thing is certain, that whilst in 1887 no bonus of any kind can be obtained, in 1787 bonuses of many kinds could be obtained, and were obtained. In the 27th year of George III., a.d. 1787, an Irish Act was passed "for the encouragement of the fishery usually called the deep sea fishery." The marginal note of that section, a section too long to repeat, states that "bounties will be given, 80 guineas for the greatest quantity of herrings caught by the crew of any one vessel, and imported between the 1st of June and the 31st of December in any one year; 60 guineas for the next greatest quantity, 40 guineas for the next, and 20 guineas for the next, to be paid on the 1st of January following." By the same Act bounties of four shillings a barrel were authorized to be given for herrings; and by another section, the fourteenth, three shillings and threepence by the hundredweight was allowed for all dried cod, ling, and other fish mentioned therein. Bounties, however, have long since been discouraged by political economists, and loans have long since been discouraged by other economists, and between those scientists money for the improvement of the Aran fishery was never so hard to be got at as at this present time.
THE ARAN FISHERIES—TRAWLING.
From the coastguard return it would appear that the Galway coastguard division is guarded by five coastguard stations, two of them being on the Aran islands, in which there has been an increase in 1886 of two second class and sixteen third class boats solely engaged in fishing. The trawlers work from Barna to the islands of Aran. That trawling injures the supply of fish is insisted upon by the one party and denied by the other. A court of public inquiry was held in Galway, where the entire question was investigated; the result of which investigation will form the subject of a special report. We shall only observe that the Scotch Fishery Board has prohibited trawling in some places in Scotland. "In the Galway Bay trawling was prohibited for a number of years in about half the bay. For about four years it was not followed at all, and, so far as the evidence at public inquiries could be relied on, there was no improvement in the fisheries during the cessation of this mode of fishing in either the whole, or part of the bay. In the case of Dublin Bay trawling has been prohibited for nearly forty-four years; and the question arises whether the fisheries of that bay have increased in that period.