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homes in the Persian Gulf or on the Indian coast. The merchants depart. The town is pulled down, and only a pile of oyster shells on the beach tells of the year's business.

Such, then, is the pearl fishery, a valuable property of the Ceylon Government, which for a period of twenty years has passed into private hands, a transaction which has agitated public opinion.

When a Government or a Corporation takes into its own hands an enterprise hitherto privately managed, it is often very difficult to prophesy the result. When, on the other hand, a public body leases its business, one does not expect to find great difficulty in discovering whether or no a good bargain has been made. The case of the Ceylon pearl fishery, however, presents so many obscure points, and is of so complicated a nature, that only after considerable study is it possible to arrive at a just conclusion. The attention of the public has been directed to certain facts which, taken alone, would form a strong indictment against the Colony, and upon this partial view of the case judgment has been asked for. Briefly, the facts in question are these that Ceylon has accepted 310,000 rupees per annum for twenty years for a property which yielded in round figures 800,000 rupees in 1903, a million rupees in 1904, and nearly two and a-half million rupees in 1905. Judged by these figures alone, the action of the Government of Ceylon has naturally been severely criticised, the late Secretary of State for the Colonies has come in for his share of abuse, and it has been shown to the satisfaction of many writers in the Press that an almost unprecedented act of folly has been committed.

It is time that the true facts were set forth. The Ceylon Pearl Fishery has flourished from time immemorial. Five hundred years before our era commenced the Aryan conquerors of the country record the sending of rich gifts of pearls to India. For two thousand years the fishery has been celebrated from China to the Mediterranean. Travellers of all nations-Greeks, Egyptians, Barbary Moors, Arabs, Venetians, and Genoese-all speak of this rich harvest of the sea. When Ceylon fell to the Portuguese, that enterprising people did not miss so valuable a prize. The Dutch, who supplanted them, have left official records of their fisheries; while since the English occupation every fact which bore upon the matter has been carefully noted. A search amongst these records reveals the fact that from time to time, for reasons hitherto mysterious, there have occurred, without warning, absolute failures in the fishery over long periods of years. For years together the most diligent search upon the banks has shown them to be absolutely barren; a few years later and the sea floor is littered with myriads of oysters, which, remaining for an uncertain time, again mysteriously disappear. When the Dutch took over the banks in 1658 the inhabitants of that part of the island had fallen

into a state of utter destitution, owing to the prolonged failure in the oyster crop. The first Dutch fishery was held in 1663, the second in 1669, and the third not till twenty-two years later in 1691. In 1700 the fishery failed entirely, and so often did this occur that it has been computed that between 1666 and 1904, a period of 238 years, only fifty-eight fisheries were held. The history of the banks since 1838 is recorded with exactness. Out of the sixty-five years from that date up to 1904 the first sixteen years were barren, and in twenty-nine of the remaining forty-nine years no fishery could be held. The net revenue derived by Ceylon during the whole of this period was 657,000l., or an average annual sum of about 10,000l., equal to 150,000 rupees. The year 1905, the last year during which the banks remained in the hands of the Government, produced an unprecedented fishery. Seventy-eight and a half million oysters were brought to shore, the representatives of the lessees protested that the banks had been fished absolutely bare, and a great windfall was placed in the hands of the Government. By the terms of the lease the Government is now entitled to a rent, for twenty years, of 310,000 rupees a year, and is to be saved an expenditure upon the camp in payment of police and other services which in 1905 amounted to 220,000 rupees. The rent is therefore more than double the average revenue, and, if the camp expenditure is included, the amount gained and saved by the Colony is about two and a half times the average annual value of the fishery for the past sixty-five years. In addition to this, the lessees are to spend from one to three million rupees, as the Government may direct, in the improvement of the fishery, and are restricted as regards the number of oysters fished during the last few years of the lease. These are the facts of the case, and I think that upon these facts only one conclusion is possible—namely, that the Government of Ceylon have driven a bargain which should silence criticism.

If

It will immediately be said that the group of astute financiers who have leased this fishery would not have moved in the matter had there been no prospect of a dividend: nor is this objection unreasonable. The question to be solved is one of natural history. the cause of the periodic disappearance of the oysters can be discovered and measures taken to prevent this disappearance, then the future of the pearl fishery is secured. The matter has been for some time under examination at the hands of marine biologists, who may be trusted to find a solution of the mystery if it is discoverable. A most careful survey of the banks is now annually made, and the beds which are to be fished each year are systematically examined and the oysters roughly counted. Boats moving in circles round given points send down divers, whose take is carefully recorded on a chart, with the average age of the oysters. As it is known that a good

diver can clear from two and a half to three square yards at a dive, the number of million oysters upon a bank can be approximately arrived at. Nor is this computation found from the fishing results to be inaccurate. Various causes lead to the disappearance of the oysters from banks upon which they have been seen and counted. It is believed by some that they occasionally detach themselves from their hold and move away, but, though this may be the case when young, it is doubtful if they do so when mature. The shifting of the sand owing to the storms and currents probably accounts for their disappearance in many cases where they are gradually silted over, lie buried beneath the sea floor, and so perish. Boring sponges which pierce the shell are responsible for much disease and many deaths; while the oyster is as susceptible as all other creatures to the evil effects of overcrowding, which lowers their vitality, arrests the shell growth, and causes widespread mortality. The young spat is washed away into unfavourable places and so lost, while the old oyster is liable to the attacks of its greatest enemy, the huge ray, which with its teeth of great crushing power is able to crunch the strongest snells. Shoals of these fish, many of them five feet across, pass along the banks annihilating the oysters, and destroy whole beds within a short time. These are probably the chief causes of the uncertainty which has always hung over the banks from year to year. And if these are responsible for the frequent failure of the fishery, it is possible that this failure may be prevented by depositing large quantities of broken stone upon the bottom. These stones prevent to some extent the drifting of the sand, they afford a holding ground for the oysters, and ward off the attacks of the ray, who, unable to differentiate between the oysters and the stones, become discouraged and move off. Experiments have already been tried in the transportation of young oysters about nine months old from unfavourable ground. Ten millions were dredged from a small area, and so great was the number found that after these had been gathered there was no apparent diminution in the numbers brought up, and so far the divers report that they have suffered no mortality. An oyster of from three and a half to four and a half years old may yield fine pearls, so that if these experiments succeed in maintaining a constant supply a fine return may be expected before many years.

It is of course possible that investigation may at any time throw light upon the pearl-forming parasite. The host of the adult parasite is not known, but as oysters from neighbouring areas vary enormously in pearl infection it is supposed that certain conditions attract this host, whatever it may be. The pearl production of one generation of oysters is little indication of the yield of the following generation upon the same beds—a fact which increases the mystery. Should the history of this parasite be discovered it will probably be possible to

increase the infection at will. The question is being most carefully investigated, and a solution is not beyond the bounds of possibility.

If, as is probable, even without the aid of this discovery, the highly scientific management of the banks largely increases the number of fisheries per decade, then the lessees will have obtained a magnificent reward, and when the lease is over the Colony will take possession of a fishing-ground which will have become one of the finest properties owned by any Colonial Government in the Empire.

SOMERS SOMERSET.

AUTHORS AND PUBLISHERS

I HAVE been an author for forty-six years. I have brought out, alone or in co-operation, more than sixty books, and I have had dealings with ten publishing-houses. I have no hesitation in saying that these dealings have been satisfactory to me, quite as satisfactory, for I will make no comparisons, as have been my relations with the doctors and solicitors whom I have come across in the course of a long life. I consider myself to have been treated with justice and even generosity. I allow that I have had, or at least have supposed myself to have, causes of complaint. But these causes have been very few, and it is quite possible that I may have failed to take the other side of the case into due consideration. As I wish to tell the whole truth, I will state, without of course giving any names, my grievances. There are but two of them. I arranged for the publication by a certain firm of two books on the half-profit system. One of the stipulations of the agreement, usual and indeed I can readily believe necessary, was that the publisher should have the right of disposing of the books at such a price as should seem good to him. The theory on which this stipulation is founded is that the publisher is equally interested with the author in making the sales as profitable as possible. But in practice this sometimes works badly. It did so with me. My books are of a kind which sell slowly, being used for prizes and gifts, and they are published at low prices. I can easily imagine that a firm accustomed to dealings on a large scale would find it not worth their while to burden themselves with a business of this kind. What they did was to sell the stock in hand at something like a 'remainder' price. I got my share at once, but it was much less than a half of what I should have received in the ordinary course. The other grievance is that an inadequate offer was made to me which I was improvident and ignorant enough to accept. No compulsion was put upon me. It is only fair to allow that the publisher did not suppose that the book would earn the profit which, as a matter of fact, it did earn. And the whole question of 'bargains' is one of great moral difficulty. You see a picture, or a curio, or an old book or manuscript for sale. The possessor does not know its value and you do. Is it right to buy it

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