THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 285 



to say that the latter are as a rule much more scrupulous. 

 At any rate, mutual remonstrances relative to acts of either 

 wilful outrage or deliberate piracy have of late years 

 occasioned much correspondence between the Foreign 

 Offices of the North Sea fishing states, and between those 

 of Great Britain and the Netherlands especially ; and, 

 although in some cases offenders have been detected and 



o 



punished, the impossibility either to take them in flagranti 

 or identify them afterwards has generally been the reason 

 of their escaping. This is not a place for dwelling on so 

 painful a subject ; neither does the scope of the present 

 work include an exposition of the Convention concluded 

 at the Hague on May 6th, 1882, for the future prevention 

 of similar outrages, and the establishment of an international 

 police in the North Sea A Bill for the ratification of the 

 said treaty has been laid before the Netherlands Parliament, 

 not many weeks before this is being written, and has not 

 as yet been taken into consideration ; and the subject 

 therefore cannot as yet be said to belong to the history 

 of Dutch sea-fisheries, or of legislation respecting them. 

 The only statute for the prevention of ill-doings by Dutch 

 fishermen as yet on the Netherlands statue-book, besides 

 of course the common penal laws, is contained in articles 

 2-5, 14, and 20 of the above-mentioned law of June 2ist, 

 1 88 1, which is at present the sea-fishery code of the realm. 

 The obligation for every Dutch fishing-vessel to carry on 

 her bows and sails letters and a number, stating her home 

 port, name, and owner, and never to hide or obliterate 

 those letters and numbers, is contained in the said law, 

 together with the necessary penal and administrative 

 dispositions to ensure the precaution being carried into 

 effect. 



