JAPANESE FISHING POLICY 31 



this state, while the American stocks of halibut were overfished in 

 the past, but this condition has now been corrected by the regula- 

 tions of the International Pacific Halibut Commission. In other 

 words, the condition of overfishing was corrected by the United 

 States and Canada, but has not been acted upon in Japan as far as 

 we have been able to determine. 



Kasahara also cites the decline in the Japanese sardines. The catch 

 apparently reached a peak of abotit 6 billion pounds per year in 

 the mid-1930's, but with both Japan and Korea fishing intensively, 

 the decline of the catch was rapid, and in about five years fell to 

 400 million pounds per year, where it has remained. 



Again, the papers quoted by Kasahara are most reluctant to 

 admit that this decline had any connection with the fishery, although 

 Kasahara stated that conservation measures might be useful in 

 restoring the sardine stocks "by drastically reducing the fishing effort 

 for a few successive years." "Unfortunately," he says, "the Japanese 

 government is not in a position to enforce such drastic regulations 

 as an experiment. In a way, this is a pity because such an experiment 

 might make it possible to find means to restore the sardine stock to 

 the level of the pre-declined period . . . one must admit that the 

 possible reward is big enough to justify such a gamble." It appears 

 that the Japanese government is unable to take the action which 

 would be required to control the sardine fishery. Such action, of 

 course, ^vould be contrary to the policy of Japanese fishermen sug- 

 gested by Kasahara ^vhich has been, in effect, of fishing areas and 

 stocks initil the yield ^vas low enough to impose an economic limit 

 to the intensity of fishing. 



In a recent paper, Nakai and Hayashi (1962) have submitted fur- 

 ther arguments that the sardine fishery ^vas depleted as a result of 

 natural causes. However, they conclude tentatively that the con- 

 tinuation of intensive fishing on adults is preventing the recovery 

 of the fishery even though hydrographic conditions, to which they 

 ascribe the decline in sardines, have now become favorable to the 

 sardines. They therefore recommend restricting the Japanese sardine 

 fishery to permit recovery of the stock. No action has been reported 

 by the Japanese government. 



In a 1955 report by Kubo, Hirano, Sano, Taguchi, and Kasahara 

 on the Japanese home islands salmon fishery (INPFC, 1955), these 

 authors reported that conservation measures in Japan were quite 



