OUR SEA FISHERIES. 209 



We have tolerably good evidence that other nations 

 by no means share in our apathy as regards the inte- 

 rests of their fisheries. Witness the three nights' dis- 

 cussion in the French Parliament of matters affecting 

 their fishings, and the expensive mission sent out by 

 the French Socidte d' ' Acclimatation to Norway and 

 elsewhere, as well as that of Monsieur Coumes to 

 England, to collect facts concerning the fisheries. 

 Witness the astuteness and attention of the Dutch 

 towards them ; the great care and strict laws with 

 regard to salt-water fishings of the Norwegians 

 themselves ; and it certainly seems anomalous to find 

 such little care taken by us of interests of a tenfold 

 larger extent, though of a similar nature. 



The great evil which our fisheries all around the 

 coast suffer from is from these small-meshed trawlers 

 being allowed to trawl close inshore, where the fry of 

 all kinds of fish betake themselves for safety. Worked 

 in such places, the small trawls destroy the spawn and 

 fry of all the fish that inhabit our coasts to an extent 

 which cannot be calculated, and, if it could, would be 

 so incredible that few would be found who would 

 believe it. But to give a slight notion of what can be 

 done, I may state that from the small poke-net of a 

 common shrimper on the Sussex coast I have seen, at 

 almost every emptying of the net, as many as from 



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