1912] on Thfi North Sea and its Fisherim. 421 



Taking the last year (1908) for which statistics are ea^^ily avail- 

 able, Great Britain and the other five North Sea powers bring to land 

 some two million tons of fish a year ; and of this great quantity 

 Britain has for her share over 60 per cent., Norway has 25 percent., 

 and the other four nations share among them 15 per cent, of the 

 wliole. Of the grand total catch of Great Britain no less than 84 per 

 cent, is landed on the east coast of England and Scotland. 



The composition of the catch is very different in different countries. 

 I show you a diagram to illustrate how overwhelming is Norway's 

 catch of cod ; and another to illustrate the absence of plaice from the 

 fisheries of that country, the small importance of this fish in Scotland, 

 its greater importance in England, and its especial and peculiar pre- 

 dominance in Denmark. When we deduct our three staple fishes — 

 herring, cod, and haddock — there remains less than 10 per cent, of 

 the Scottish catch, a fifth of that of Holland, a third of that of 

 England, about half of that of Denmark, two-thirds of that of Belgium. 



When we translate the above catches into money-value, we find 

 that six nations earn from their fisheries close upon twenty millions 

 a year (or say, 50,000/. a day), of which Britain takes 11,000,000/., 

 or actually about 62 per cent. ; and that first return is probably 

 trebled, or nearly so, by the indirect earnings and profits of the trade. 

 The several shares are not alike in regard to quantity and value : 

 for instance, Norway, with about a quarter of the total catch, has but 

 an eighth of the total money-value, for her cod and herring are re- 

 latively cheap ; while Denmark takes over 4 per cent, in money in 

 return for a little over 2 per cent, in quantity, for her plaice and eels 

 are costly fish. 



But without pressing statistics further, it is plain that the small 

 or even petty shares which certain countries earn from the fisheries 

 are far from being less vital to them than is our greater share to us. 

 It was common for our older writers of two centuries ago to attribute 

 the wealth of Holland wholly, or almost wholly, to the herring- 

 fishery. " It is almost wholly from the Herring-fishery," says one, 

 " that they have raised a country labouring under the disadvantage 

 of intemperate air, excessive Expense in maintaining their Dykes, 

 and want of almost all those Necessaries in which we so greatly 

 abound, to that Plenty, Wealth and Power they at present enjoy." 

 And when Charles V. made his pilgrimage to the tomb of the man 

 who, long generations before, had invented pickled herrings, he 

 manifested a similar belief. If no nation be nowadays so exclusively 

 dependent on this or any other single industry, yet we may easily 

 realize that, wealth and population considered, the two millions that 

 Norway earns, or the three-quarters of a million that Denmark earns, 

 from her fisheries, are, more even than in our case, of indispensable 

 and immeasurable importance to the support and well-being of the 

 people. 



When we come to consider the quantities of fish that come from 



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