Painted Brightly 



up into a sizable catch. They've scraped the bottom clean. And 

 now they're moanin' and askin' for subsidies and protection and 

 one thing or another. What subsidy or protection did they ever 

 give to the sea and to the fish ? that's what I'd like to know. They're 

 nae better than pirates, that's what they are, nae better nor pir- 

 ates.' 



There was, Jan thought, probably some truth in the stories of 

 these old-timers. But, though they showed up seine-netting as 

 almost immoral, they did not make it into a bad business proposi- 

 tion. That was a function of his own eyes. He had often seen 

 these tiny boats lurching helplessly in a swell. He knew how easy 

 it was for them to lose their gear. He had heard vaguely of the 

 gruelling hours of work that were necessary for a modest liveli- 

 hood. None of these factors tended to make seine-netting an at- 

 tractive employment. Yet here was Tadeusz assuring him that it 

 was the best job on the sea. 



Years were to go by before Jan had explained all these contra- 

 dictions to himself. Even his experience at sea was not enough 

 for that. The essential fact was that the seine net was a more 

 effective instrument for catching fish than the trawl. This advan- 

 tage was balanced, however, by the fact that the trawler was a more 

 efficient instrument for finding fish than the seine-netter. These 

 differences in function were joined to a conflict of interest, and 

 so was created an intense rivalry that often led to something like 

 economic war and occasionally to physical violence. 



It went like this. The Danish Plaice Seine Net was invented by 

 Jens Vaevar in 1 848 but, though it quickly established itself as a 

 common instrument in the plaice-rich waters of the eastern North 

 Sea, it was not adopted by British fishermen until well into the 

 twentieth century. The first World War passed and there were 

 still only a few seine-net vessels in the southern parts of England. 

 But, as the nineteen-twenties wore on, fish became less plentiful 

 in the North Sea and gear more expensive. Men began to look 

 about for a more effective method of catching whatever fish re- 

 mained. They took to the seine net. About 1925^ it spread to 



1^7 



