4:26 The North Sea and its Fisheries. [March 22, 



every fishery department in the kingdom is making these men's case 

 the subject of its anxious and pecuHar care. 



It is partly for biological reasons, connected with the preservation 

 of the general supply of fish, but it is in great part for these men's 

 sake, and for the line-fishers in general, in order that they may have 

 a stretch of waters of their own, that we close against the trawlers 

 the territorial and more than the territorial zone. When we close to 

 trawling the waters of a shallow and sandy coast or bay, we are, on 

 the one hand, encouraging the lesser fishermen of the coast, and, on 

 the other hand, we are trying to protect the young fish, flat-fish 

 especially, whose nature it is to congregate on such grounds. 



In some ways I think that the fishing industry, and the trawling 

 industry in particular, may justly and rightly, and for the general 

 good, have to submit in the future to greater restrictions than in the 

 past — restrictions especially aimed, for the benefit of the industry 

 itself, at lessening the waste of the younger fish. But, as Huxley 

 said years ago, " Every legislative restriction means the creation of a 

 new offence ; means that a simple man of the people, earning a 

 scanty livelihood by hard toil, shall be liable to fine and imprison- 

 ment for doing that which he and his fathers before him had, up to 

 that time, been free to do ! " Science, practical poHcy, and the 

 interests of class and of constituency, do not always tell the same 

 story. And if responsibility be great upon the legislator, it is 

 scarcely less upon the scientific enquirer, who, without pressing his 

 side of the case too far, nor thinking that his opinion is all in all, 

 must yet play a considerable part in reporting upon the merits of all 

 fishery legislation, and in advising as to what had best be done, what 

 it were better to leave undone, in the best light of his judgment, and 

 with regard to the best interests of all. 



[D.W.T.] 



WEEKLY EVENING MEETING, 



Friday, March 29, 1912. 



His Grace The Duke op Northumberland, K.G. D.C.L. 

 LL.D. F.R.S., President, in the Chair. 



Professor Sir J. J. Thomson, O.M. M.A. LL.D. D.Sc, F.K.S. 

 M.R.I., Professor of Natural Philosophy, Eoyal Institution. 



Results of the Application of Positive Rays to the 

 Study of Chemical Problems. 



[The substance of this discussion is included in a paper on 

 Further Experiments on Positive Rays, in the ' Philosophical Maga- 

 zine,' Series 6, Vol. xxiv. No. 140, Aug. 1912, page 210.J 



