THE POSITION IN 1920 201 



In the North Sea, therefore, the catching power employed 

 has increased hy 5 per cent., and the average catch of the 

 average vessel for each day spent at sea by nearly 11 per cent. ; 

 to the southward of Ireland the catching power has increased 

 32 per cent, and the average catch by 2-9 per cent. The number 

 of Iceland voyages has not changed materially, but the average 

 catch has increased about 12 per cent. In the English Channel 

 the creation of a brand-new first-class steam-trawler industry 

 brings this area for the first time into the list of the Great 

 Fisheries. 



The number of voyages made by English vessels to every 

 other ground has diminished, viz. in the Barents Sea by 

 98 per cent., Faeroe 73 per cent., North of Scotland 16 per cent., 

 West of Ireland 17 per cent.. Westward of Scotland 44 per cent., 

 Eockall 46 per cent., Bay of Biscay 91 per cent., Portugal and 

 Morocco 89 per cent., Bristol Channel 28 per cent. 



The fluctuations in the average daily catch per vessel since 

 1906 have been as follows : 



1906. 1907. 1908. 1909. 1910. 1911. 1912. 1913. 1920. 



CwL Cwt. Cu-t. Cwt. Cwt. Cwt. Civt. CwL Civt. 



Had the writer been asked to make a forecast of the last 

 column of this table in 1918 he would not have hesitated. Two 

 years ago he beheved that the population of the sea varied 

 more or less in inverse ratio to the number of fish killed by 

 fishermen, and that nature, left to herself, would add an approxi- 

 mately even accretion to the fish population every year. 

 During the war fishermen were not able to kill many fish. It 

 followed that a very large stock must have accumulated in the 

 sea during the War. It was apparently safe to anticipate that 

 the 1920 catch would be about double the pre-Avar maximum. 

 The fish had been practically unmolested on the spawning 

 grounds in 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918 : the fleets would still be 

 below strength in 1919 which would give the fish comparative 



