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CHAPTER IV 



STATISTICS 



Business and Science have this much in common that each 

 must base future pohcy on sound statistical information. It is 

 commonly believed that the fish on many of our grounds have 

 been profoundly affected by the immunity which they enjoyed 

 during the war. Vessel-owners and naturalists alike are engaged 

 in comparing pre-war and post-war conditions. Can it be said 

 that our statistics give an accurate and easily read picture of the 

 condition of the great fisheries down to 1913 ? It is generally 

 admitted that they do not. Unfortunately, the figures for ships 

 landing in England and Wales and those for Scottish ports were 

 recorded by separate authorities. This would not matter had 

 they been prepared on a uniform systena. But they were not. 



The writer has, for instance, attempted to compare the pro- 

 ductivity of the northern portion of the North Sea with that 

 of the southern portion in 1913. It is quite impossible, because 

 the northern waters were trawled very heavily by vessels 

 landing their ' voyages ' in Scottish ports, and the Scottish 

 authorities make no attempt to indicate the banks from which 

 the catch came. Similarly the EngHsh authorities did not 

 separate the work of the ' South-Eastern' vessels from that of the 

 ' North-Eastern '. The figures can, of course, with great labour, 

 be separated ; but busy men will not ' dig ' in blue books. 



A plea is therefore here entered, that British statistics should 

 in future be kept on a uniform basis, and that they should be so 

 arranged as to show at a glance the results achieved by each 

 class of vessel on the grounds which they exploit. They should 

 also show clearly the allocation of the vessels of each port to 

 the various fisheries. It is, for instance, not possible to state 

 from the old reports how many steam-trawlers were fishing 

 out of Grimsby in any given year ; still less to say how many 

 voyages were made from that port to the grounds south of the 

 Tees-Skaw fine, how many north of it, how many to Eaeroe, 

 how many to Iceland, and so forth. Yet without such informa- 

 tion it. is impossible to judge whether a port is developing or de- 

 teriorating, and whether the fisheries are or are not flourishing. 



