first, but very imperfect sailors; there are even some who, after the three voyages required previous to being entered on the lists, give up the sea as an employment; but the number of these is much smaller than has been stated. And is it not evident that our population on the sea-board would enter less readily upon the career of seamen, if, in place of the excitement and interest which their engagement in the fisheries offers, they had no prospect but that of embarking in the vessels of state?

The government proposes to you to continue the bounty of fifty francs a man for the crews of vessels employed in the fisheries, with drying, whether carried on upon the coasts of Newfoundland, at St. Pierre, and Miquelon, where the conditions and method of fishing are analogous, or upon the Grand Bank. We have alluded to the difficulties of this mode of fishing, even when it is prosecuted without drying the fish caught.

We give entire approbation to these propositions.

The bounty on the fishing without drying in the Icelandic seas, is fixed at fifty francs per man for each of the crew, since the law of June 25, 1841. We have retained this also, on the recommendation of messieurs the Minister of Commerce and the Marine. No fishery, in truth, is more suitable for the formation of intrepid sailors. On the coast of Newfoundland the ship is laid up and dismantled; on the Grand Banks it is at anchor; in Iceland it must needs be under sail among floating ice, and on a sea continually stormy and agitated. The fishing is practised with hand-lines, from a hundred to a hundred and fifiy fathoms in length; the fish, instead of being salted in bulk, is prepared and salted in tuns brought from France. The cod coming from Iceland are not dried; this fishery only furnishes the green cod consumed in France, and thus it receives no benefit on the bounties for exportation. The number of vessels fitted out not having increased of late years, it is reasonable to conclude that the profits of this fishery are not consid

erable.

Six vessels only have been sent to the Dogger Bank since 1841. We retain the bounty of 15 francs per man for each of the crew, which is given to this fishery, carried on in the North sea.

Bounty on the produce of the fisheries.-According to the law of 1841, the bounty on dry codfish sent to the French colonies, whether from the place where the fish is caught or from the warehouse in France, is fixed at 22 francs per quintal. The law proposes to reduce this amount to 20 francs per quintal; and we approve the reduction. The same law of 1841 assigns a bounty of 14 francs the quintal to all codfish sent into transatlantic countries. A decree of August 24, 1848, raised this bounty to 18 francs. The present project proposes to render it equal to that accorded to fish sent to the French colonies. We believe this new proposal to be wisely conceived, and likely to produce very beneficial effects on our fisheries. In fact, the diminution of two francs per quintal in the bounty on exportations to our colonial possessions, together with an augmentation of two francs in favor of exportation to foreign transatlantic countries, will tend to open new foreign markets to us, at the very moment when the political and commercial situation of our colonies leads us to apprehend a decrease of their ordinary consumption.

The sacrifice on the part of the treasury will not be augmented; for a considerable quantity of codfish was re-exported from our colonies, after having enjoyed the bounty of 22 francs. The shippers would no longer have an interest in overstocking our colonial markets with their produce, since the bounty will be no higher when sent there than when sent to Cuba or Brazil; and, at the same time, the exemption from all duties in our colonies guaranties that they will always be sufficiently supplied.

The prohibition to send codfish to ports at which there is no French consul forms part of the law of 1841. In order to prevent abuses, the shippers are obliged to furnish a certificate proving the good quality of their fish, and its exact weight. It is important to the interest of the treasury that these certificates should be made by a government officer, who would be under the influence of responsibility not felt by men completely unconnected with the administration. There is, moreover, no port of any consideration at which there is not a French consular agent.

This commission has considered it its duty to admit our colonies on the western coast of Africa to the benefit of the same bounties accorded to the West India colonies, and has especially had Senegal in view-a colony too often overlooked and forgotten. The government has accepted this addition to the proposed law.

The present project establishes the bounty of 16 francs on exportations to European countries and to foreign States on the Mediterranean, which the law of 1841 had established at 14 francs, and a decree of 1848 had raised to 18 francs. This reduction in favor of the treasury we do not consider likely to militate against our exportation to those countries. In concurrence with the government, we include Tuscany in this category; but we except from it Sardinia, where ancient and well-assured relations permit us to reduce the protection to 12 francs.

Upon the whole, messieurs, the scale of bounties which we above propose to you promises the treasury a saving of 300,000 francs, provided that, in spite of our fears of its decrease, our exportations of codfish remain equal to what they have been during the last ten years.

The second article of the proposed law retains the obligation that each vessel shall have a minimum of crew proportioned to the size of the ship. This measure, which was established in 1832, on the request of the shipmasters themselves, is at once preservative of their interests and those of maritime enlistment, the essential object of all the protec tion to the fisheries.

ap

The Minister of Marine has declared to us that the minimums appeared to him to be judiciously regulated, and that there was no necessity for modifying them, the administration having had, thus far, no reason to complain of any abuses. The commission has therefore proved the minimums as they are now established, adding, that if, in the course of the term which you propose to fix for the duration of the law, the necessity of augmenting them shall become evident, the gov ernment shall have the power to provide for their increase.

The vessels sent to the fisheries without drying, having salt on boardthat is to say, in Iceland and on the Grand Bank-are never subjected to the ordinance respecting minimums; they embark at their own pleasure,

such number of men as their crew as they deem advisable for navigating and fishing. Their crews are less numerous, because they have no need, like the vessels fishing on the coast, to employ hands in the operation of drying fish ashore; but all the men being mariners, all contribute alike to the naval enrolment. These vessels are compelled to bring back to France the entire produce of their fisheries. Several ports on the channel, which fit out especially for the fisheries without drying, have many times complained of the absolute prohibition to sell any part of their cargoes at the seat of the fisheries, or to store them at St. Pierre, in order to be forwarded thence to colonial or foreign markets. It is understood that the object of this prohibition is to disallow the great bounty (formerly 22 francs, henceforth 20 francs) to vessels, which, not being subject to the regulations respecting a minimum number of crew, do not contribute so largely to the naval enrolment. It may be observed, on the other hand, that these vessels form the best sailors; and there are circumstances under which the absolute compulsion to bring back the produce of their fishery to France may prove ruinous to their operations.

Messieurs the Ministers of Commerce and the Marine have entertained this view of the case, and have stated that it is the intention of the government to grant the liberty desired, under certain conditions, which will prevent the abuses that might otherwise creep in. Your commission proposes to you to provide by law that a regulation, made and published by the government, shall declare under what circunstances the warehousing of fish at St. Pierre shall be permitted, and the conditions which shall regulate warehousing. The fishery at the Grand Bank, without drying, decreases under the bounty of 30 francs. Not being able, however, to ask further sacrifices of the treasury, we wish to reanimate the outfit of these vessels, which it is so important to preserve, by other means. The third article stipulates that the bounty on the crew shall be paid but once during the season, even if the vessel should make several voyages. This wise disposition prevents the possibility of having the same men counted twice in the same year. The same article prohibits the payment of the bounty to any men but those who have arrived at the maritime enrolment through the gradations required by law, or to those who, having been inscribed therein, conditionally, shall not have attained the age of twenty-five previously to the date of sailing.

The men who have passed the age of twenty-five without being classed-that is to say, without having made three voyages-are less easily trained to the habits of the sea. The profession of a mariner is one which must be adopted while young; and if the bounties were accorded to men of above twenty-five years, and not classed, the law would fail in one of its most important ends-that, namely, of creating a class of men especially suitable for enrolment in the navy. It is right and fit, therefore, that the projected law should exclude such men from the receipt of the bounty.

The fourth article requires that, in order to obtain the bounty, the cod shall be in fit condition for consumption as food. This provision of the law cannot but obtain general approbation. The fifth article admits simple coasters to the right of carrying codfish, and receiving the boun

ties allowed on the exportation of the same to ports and markets. This right is accorded by the laws now existing. At present the law permits every mariner who shall have made five fishing voyages on the coasts of Iceland, the two last as an officer, to be deemed capable of commanding a fishing vessel in the same seas.

The sixth article of the government project abrogates this privilege, and reserves the command of such vessels exclusively to captains in foreign voyages, and the masters of coasters; this provision to date from January 1, 1852. The chamber of commerce at the port of Dunkirk, where vessels are specially fitted out for the Iceland fishery, has protested strongly against this provision. Its adoption-so they say—would act runinously on the Icelandic fishery. Of one hundred and twenty vessels annually sent to sea, fifteen, at most, are commanded by the masters of coasters, who quit that hard and laborious navigation when they find an occasion to take command of merchant vessels. In truth, it is our opinion, messieurs, that the difficulties of the Icelandic fisheries require practical experience, and the endurance of privations of all kinds to which mariners, who have become masters of fishing craft, are accustomed from their childhood, and we are of opinion that it is not advisable to deprive these devoted and gallant men of the hope of reaching a station which more experienced mariners are for the most part indifferent to acquire; and in order to reconcile the security of navigation with the facilities required by commercial interests, and asked for by a whole class of sailors, we propose to you to suppress all conditions with reference to date, and to add to the first article these words: "if he shall prove himself to have such knowledge of his profession as will be sufficient for the security of navigation." A ministe rial decree of 1840 has already made an examination of masters of fishing vessels obligatory; the new law will only confirm, by rendering legal, a usage already established. The fourth article reproduces the provisions of the twelfth article of the law of April 22, 1832, adding to it a provision by which the government will have the power of fixing the period during which each vessel shall remain on the fishing grounds.

Your commission is of opinion that it is advisable such periods should be lawfully determined; but while admitting the article, it desires that such period should be so limited as to throw no obstacle in the way of the fisherman's operations, in regard to the bounties.

SECOND HEAD.

The second head of the project presented by the government relates to the salt to be used in the fisheries.

Your commission, messieurs, has carefully examined the provisions under this head. It has examined many individuals representing the manufactures of the different kinds of salt, and several delegates from the outfitters of vessels interested in the matter; and, after mature deliberation, the commission has come to the opinion that, pending the existence of a special inquiry into the manufacture of salt, with which a committee by you appointed is at this moment engaged, it is our duty to strike out of a special law on fisheries, any propositions which might thereafter be modified by general legislation. We limit ourselves, therefore, to affirming the legislation which actually directs the

use of the various kinds of salt to be employed in the curing of codfish, without anticipating, by any particular definition, the final conclusion at which the Assembly may arrive in regard to salt.

We are the more convinced of the propriety of holding ourselves to this reservation, since the government has declared to us, since the presentation of the project, that it was its intention to strike out the exemption which the article seemed to insure to the codfish imported into France from the fishing places, and that it shall be necessary to prove, as well for such fish as for that exported to the colonies or foreign markets, that it was cured with salt of French manufacture, or with salt which had paid duty as at present.

The second head is, therefore, merely a re-enactment of the law of 1848, which is useless. But you will agree with us, messieurs, that if the existing legislation on the character of the salt should be modified unfavorably to the cod-fishing interests, the scale of bounties which we have calculated on deductions from facts now existing, must be established proportionably to the reduction which the augmentation of the duties of salt may occasion.

Upon the foregoing report the National Assembly of France passed the law therein mentioned on the 22d July, 1851, which was officially published on the 22d August last.

This law provides that from the first day of January, 1852, until the 30th June, 1861, the bounties for the encouragement of the cod-fishery shall be as follows:

BOUNTIES TO THE CREW.

1. For each man employed in the cod-fishery, (with drying,) whether on the coast of Newfoundland, at St. Pierre and Miquelon, or on the Grand Bank, 50 francs.

2. For each man employed in the fisheries in the seas surrounding Iceland, without drying, 50 francs.

3. For each man employed in the cod-fishery on the Grand Bank, without drying, 30 francs.

4. For each man employed in the fishery on the Dogger Bank, 15 francs.

BOUNTIES ON THE PRODUCTS OF THE FISHERIES.

1. Dried cod, of French catch, exported directly from the place where the same is caught, or from the warehouse in France to French colonies in America or India, or to the French establishments on the west coast of Africa, or to trans-Atlantic countries, provided the same are landed at a port where there is a French consul, per quintal metrique, equal to two hundred and twenty and a half pounds avoirdupois, twenty francs.

2. Dried cod, of French catch, exported either direct from the place where caught, or from ports in France, to European countries or foreign States within the Mediterranean, except Sardinia and Algeria, per quintal metrique, sixteen francs.

3. Dried cod, of French catch, exported either to French colonies in