322 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



Dutch vessels and apparatus of fishing and curing, and for some reason or other 

 these were aUen to the genius of the British fishermen. In 1752 the last of 

 the societies was launched and was successful for a time. Though it ulti- 

 mately failed it led up to the great Scottish industry — which culminated in the 

 summer of 1914. From it proceeded the " Board of British White Herring 

 Fishery," which, later on, became the Fishery Board for Scotland. The policy 

 involved in the Act of 1752 was responsible for the bounty system which was 

 so unfairly condemned by Adam Smith, but which probably kept the embryo 

 industry alive through the trying period of the French revolutionary and 

 Napoleonic wars. 



After the peace of 1815 the British fisheries in England, Scotland, and Ire- 

 land simply leaped upwards. Until 1845 everything pointed to Ireland 

 becoming a great fishery country, in spite of the administration of the growing 

 industry. But in 1847 came the potato failure, and after that the pestilence, 

 and then the emigration. In 1830 (when the bounty system had ceased) 

 there were about 30,000 vessels on the fishing register ; in 19 14 there were 

 about 5,000. 



In Scotland, under an administration that was efficient in the highest 

 degree, and which was, even from the beginning, scientific, the fishing in- 

 dustry made continual progress. It was predominantly a herring fishing in- 

 dustry depending on an export trade. In England the herring fishing was 

 never so important as in Scotland, and trawling by deep-sea smacks was the 

 principal method developed. Until about 1890 there was no administration 

 worth calling such, and it was only about the beginning of the present century 

 that the Central Fisheries Authority thought it worth while to prosecute 

 scientific research. The record of the industry has been, however, one of 

 continued growth, but in the later decade of the nineteenth century a remark- 

 able change in its methods occurred. 



In 1870 the first vessel designed for steam fishing was built at Grimsby. 

 She was called the Tubal Cain, and was an iron smack. She never really 

 went to sea under steam, but, later on, several steam trawlers were built as a 

 great experiment and did actually fish. The engineers consulted were un- 

 favourable to the idea : they thought that it was not probable that a screw 

 could grip the water sufficiently to propel the vessel and tow a trawl-net at 

 the same time. Besides, the cost of coal was too great — it was then eleven 

 shillings a ton ! Nevertheless, the first steam trawlers were very successful : so 

 much so that, by the beginning of the eighties, there was quite a fleet of them 

 at work on the East Coast. Even at that time they were working in Scottish 

 waters. 



Steam trawHng came into existence quite unblessed by the English 

 administration. Indeed, in 1872 Mr. E. Holdsworth, who had been Secretary 

 of the great Royal Commission of 1863, doubted whether steam power would 

 ever be a success in fishing. The Scottish Fishery Board, however, thought 

 differently. Steam trawUng was very unpopular with all other branches of 

 fishermen, and there was a great outcry against it. It was accused of destroy- 

 ing the spawn and fry of fishes, and it was also blamed for catching too many ! 

 At last the Government appointed a Royal Commission to examine the 

 question, and Lord Dalhousie, Mr. Ed. Marjoribanks, Prof. Huxley, Mr. W. S. 

 Caine, and Mr. T. F. Brady composed this body. Unlike the Royal and 

 Departmental Commissions with which we are now familiar, this one really 

 did something. It appointed Prof. Mcintosh as a Sub-Commissioner ; a 

 programme of scientific research was prepared and investigations were made. 

 Legislation followed, and the question of the effect of trawling was largely 

 resolved. 



Did intensive fishing by means of trawl-nets deplete a ground of its stock 

 of fish ? This was a matter that had to be investigated, and so a number of 

 " stations " in the Firth of Forth, St. Andrew's Bay, the Moray Firth, and the 



