[1300] A leading representative of the trawling industry, Mr G. L. Alward, thus described the process to the Committee of the Lords in 1904. The diminution, he said, was from over-fishing, “first of all in our original old fishing-grounds. We denuded those, and found less year by year as time went on. We then discovered new grounds, with, in process of time, the same result. In going back originally, say to about 1830 to about 1890, we found, at ground after ground, after being fished for a few years, the same results; the fish became scarcer and scarcer.” Report, p. 78.
[1301] The quantity brought to England from Iceland and Faröe in 1907 was nearly 117,000 tons, or nearly 26 per cent of the total quantity of bottom fishes landed. Board of Agriculture and Fisheries Annual Report on Sea Fisheries for 1907. Schmidt, Fiskeriundersøgelser ved Island og Færøerne i Sommeren, 1903, p. 132.
[1302] A sidelight is thrown upon the risks as well as the enterprise of their labours by the fact that in 1908 a trawler’s crew, on the one hand, fishing on the coast of Africa, fell into the hands of the Moors; while another, whose vessel was wrecked near the White Sea, were saved from starvation by the kindness of Russian Laplanders, who killed reindeer for their sustenance.
[1303] Trawlers, on discovering new and productive grounds, invariably select out the fish that are most remunerative and throw the rest back into the sea. “Hundreds of thousands of tons” of immature fish are said to have been destroyed in this way in the North Sea, and what has happened at Iceland with regard to mature fish is thus described in a letter from one trawler to another, which was read by the recipient to the Parliamentary Committee in 1893: “Dear Manton, ... At present the trawlers who are running Iceland are throwing thousands of tons of good mature fish away, which, if some scheme of storage were got up, the fish sorted, and bought for food, would supply thousands in the year. I have been to Iceland, and we have to throw away hundreds of tons of good mature fish, such as haddock, supposed to be too large, and great quantities of cod, ling, and other fish. The fact is, the ground, which is valuable for fishing, is completely rotten with the refuse from the trawlers. We have to haul every two hours, and we have to carry extra hands to get rid of the fish and get the bit below we choose to save. The ground is fairly poisoned, and the plaice-fishing not so brisk, only in odd places; whereas before it was more general where there is any trawling ground” (Report cit., p. 248). The grounds had only been recently opened up when this was written. It is different to-day, when 85 per cent of the fish brought back from Iceland are round fish, chiefly haddocks and cod (Ann. Rep. Sea Fisheries for 1906, App., p. 15). It used to be the same in the North Sea, only prime fish being taken, and haddocks, &c., thrown away.
[1304] Vida Marítima, Órgano de la Liga Marítima Española, 1904, 1905; Boletin oficial.
[1305] Sea Fisheries Regulation Act, 1888, 51 & 52 Vict., cap. 54. Section 1 is as follows: “1.—(1) The Board of Trade may from time to time on the application of a county council or borough council, by order, (a) create a sea fisheries district comprising any part of the sea within which Her Majesty’s subjects have by international law the exclusive right of fishing, either with or without any part of the adjoining coast of England and Wales; and (b) define the limits of the district,” &c. Sea Fisheries (England and Wales), Annual Reports of the Inspectors; Board of Agriculture and Fisheries, Annual Reports of Proceedings under Acts relating to Sea Fisheries. An excellent chart, showing the regulations with respect to trawling around the English coast, is published in the Report from the Select Committee of the House of Lords on the Sea Fisheries Bill, 1904.
[1306] Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction for Ireland: Report on the Sea and Inland Fisheries for 1907. Part I., General Report, pp. 56-62.
[1307] Report on the Sea and Inland Fisheries of Ireland for 1904, p. xxv. Manual of Fisheries (Ireland) Acts. Section 3 (subsection 1) of the Steam Trawling (Ireland) Act, 1889 (52 & 53 Vict., c. 74), gave powers to the Inspectors of Irish Fisheries to make, alter, and revoke byelaws for prohibiting steam-trawling “within three miles of low-water mark of any part of the coast of Ireland, or within the waters of any other defined areas specified in any such byelaw, and subject to any conditions or regulations contained in such byelaw.” Subsection 2 enacted that “each and every person who uses any trawl-net, or any method of fishing in contravention of any byelaw of the Inspectors of Irish Fisheries made in pursuance of this section,” shall be subject to a fine not exceeding five pounds for a first offence, or twenty pounds for a second or subsequent offence, with forfeiture of the gear employed. Section 4 made it unlawful for “any person” to land or sell in Ireland any fish caught in contravention of any such byelaw. Section 1 (subsection 1) of the Fisheries (Ireland) Act, 1901 (1 Ed. VII., c. 38), makes “every person who uses any trawl-net or any method of fishing in contravention of any byelaw” of the department made in pursuance of the third section of the Act of 1889, liable on conviction under the Summary Jurisdiction Acts to a fine not exceeding one hundred pounds, with forfeiture of the gear, for the seizure of which any duly authorised officer is empowered to “go on board any vessel propelled by steam employed in fishing.” The Irish byelaws must be approved by the Lord-Lieutenant and Privy Council of Ireland.
[1308] Sea Fisheries (Clam and Bait Beds) Act, 44 & 45 Vict., c. 11.
[1309] 48 & 49 Vict., c. 70; 50 & 51 Vict., c. 52.