Page:Our New Zealand Cousins.djvu/293

Rh at the mouth of the inner bay are quite park-like with their clumps of bosky wood. Round the various points, sailing close up in the wind, creep whole flotillas of fishing and trading ketches. Tasmanians are famed for their dashing seamanship. The broad estuary is thronged as if a regatta were being held. Some of the ketches lie very low in the water, and some heel over in regular racer fashion. Most of them have a deep centre-board. Ask the skipper where is his load-line. He will answer, "Up to the main hatch." They are manned by a hardy, adventurous race, who number among their ranks some of the very finest boat sailors in the world. What splendid herring fishers they would make! Yes, if we only had the herring!

And yet around the Australian coasts what hauls might be made with proper appliances, and what a source of wealth have we not in the teeming millions of fish that haunt the shores, and breed among the islets and in every bay and estuary. Here is another of the neglected industries that might give employment to hundreds of our colonial youth. It needs no coddling by the State. It would flourish without the aid of fustian claptrap. It might exist without any custom-house