ECONOMICS OF THE FISHERIES 311 



Technical methods of handling the catch on boats are generally inade- 

 quate for products as delicate as fish are. As now caught, fish usually die 

 in a state of extreme fatigue resulting from the struggle in a net or on a 

 hook and their flesh is therefore acid (which is known to hasten deteriora- 

 tion) ; good sanitation, cleanliness and care of the fish are not practiced 

 as carefully as they should be; pitchforks are still used for handling fresh 

 fish in New England trawlers, and general rough handling of fish aboard 

 vessels results often in serious damage and loss of weight by shrinkage, so 

 that a considerable part of what is caught is so inferior as to injure the 

 standing of fish in public esteem, rather than to promote it. Colleges or 

 other institutions of instruction and research in the fisheries are exceed- 

 ingly few. 



These are all evidences of an unprogressive industry which has been 

 deficient in capacity to generate improvements of its own and slow to take 

 advantage of opportunities generated elsewhere. The slowness of the fish- 

 eries industry to improve its methods of pursuit and capture is undoubtedly 

 due in large part to poor economic incentives and legal hindrances, and, 

 in addition, to the fact that life for a scientist or engineer is not very 

 attractive at sea on a fishing boat, where he must be — in order to learn about 

 the problems and conduct experiments — as compared to a comfortable 

 laboratory on shore. In another part this backwardness of the fisheries 

 industry may well be explainable by its odd nature, in which it stands 

 alone, as an incongruous mixture of communism ^° and capitalism. It is 

 communistic in the non-private or public ownership and political control 

 and regulation of the source, but capitalistic in the ownership of the tools 

 of production and freedom of enterprise, and individualistic in the de- 

 tached and isolated lives that rival fishermen live, much of the time at 

 sea. Even when capitalistic in form of enterprise, as when fishermen oper- 

 ate boats and gear owned by investors not fishing, the actual fishing opera- 

 tions are communistic, in that labor does not work for hire but for a share 

 of the proceeds, and operations are remote from control by, and little 

 subject to, owners, but the product once caught becomes private property. 

 In its communistic aspects the fishing industry is deficient in the incentive 

 of profits, and being subject to the political power of regulation, it lacks 

 the votes to assert itself. With only 125,000 fishermen in the United States, 



of "Nylock." Great Lakes conservation officials recently held a conference at Erie, Pa., and 

 solicited testimony of commercial fishermen who said they are catching three to twelve times 

 more fish with the new equipment. There is speculation that with wider distribution of the new 

 nets, it may become necessary to place some restriction on total catches. Conservationists, already 

 concerned with fish destruction in the Lakes by lampreys, apparently view progress with alarm." 

 10. The word communism is here used, not in the current ideological and political controversial 

 sense, but as defined by Webster: "Any ... system of social organization involving common 

 ownership of the agents of production, and some approach to equal distribution of the products 

 of industry." In this case, the source of supply, rather than "agents." 



