With the experience before them of the vast revenues from whaling at South Georgia and South Shetlands going almost entirely to Norway, our Government has, we think, wisely restricted the granting of whaling licences at the Seychelles to British concerns. Our company rented land for our station, built the factories and has some years’ lease to run, and the best season for fishing begins about 1st of May.
The vast whaling industry in the Falkland Island Dependencies—the South Georgia and South Shetlands—was started as a result of the information that Dr W. S. Bruce and the writer brought back from there in regard to the immense number of finner whales we had seen there in our Antarctic voyage of 1892-1893 to the Antarctic and Weddell Sea; and in one of the first of the Norwegian companies, which is still successful to-day, the writer took a considerable interest at its start. This company is to-day paying a dividend of over 150 per cent. But for the war I consider the Seychelles whaling should have paid handsomely now.
In regard to this great modern whaling industry in the sub-Antarctic seas we may here say that, previously to the Norwegians starting it, Dr Bruce and the writer held meetings in Edinburgh and urged the leading business men, merchants and shipping people to take it up. We foretold the fortunes that were to be made, but they did not rise. A little later the Norwegian who we hoped to have as manager for the first whaling station in South Georgia, Captain Larsen, succeeded in raising capital in Argentina, and I am told began with a modest 70 per cent. profit in the first year. Norwegian companies quickly followed his lead and utilised our Empire’s resources for Norway!
FOOTNOTES
[1] Values of whales and their products constantly change. To-day finner whales’ oil is becoming almost as valuable as sperm oil.
[2] A pram is a flat-bottomed boat, square stern and pointed saucer bow.
[3] A. Balænoptera Musculus; B. Balænoptera Sibbaldii; C. Balænoptera Borealis; D. Balæna Biscayensis; E. Physeter Macrocephalus.
[4] Far the best whale to eat is the Seihvale Balænoptera Borealis.
[5] We picked up a dead whale two days later and we hope it was the whale we lost.
[6] In the South Shetlands Captain Sorrensen, referred to previously, killed ten whales in one day, one was ninety feet in length, and probably weighed ninety tons.