but little evidence existed to suggest that re- 

 duction of the stocks in any one year serious- 

 ly reduced the runs the following year. Thus, 

 the main reasons were to prevent overcrowd- 

 ing and conflict on the fishing grounds and 

 to maintain economic viability of the individual 

 fishing enterprise. This latter reason was to 

 become clearly the overwhelming one in sub- 

 sequent years. 



DEVELOPMENT AFTER THE 

 OCCUPATION PERIOD 



If the system was accepted and proved ade- 

 quate as it stood during the first years of its 

 effect, it patently was going to require modi- 

 fication after Japan regained full sovereignty. 

 As stated above, the fleet, both in reference 

 to numbers and size of craft, was more than 

 adequate to harvest resources in the area to 

 which it had been restricted by the Occupation 

 Government. However, Japanese tuna fisher- 

 men had begun to open up tuna grounds in 

 the west central Pacific and East Indies waters 

 prior to World War II. Catch rates had been 

 high, the resource was known to be large and 

 many were anxious to return to these grounds 



denied them during the Occupation. To do 

 so, larger vessels were desirable; the resouixe 

 could support a larger fleet than existed in 

 1952. Pressures developed to permit expan- 

 sion of the fleet — internal pressure from 

 existing license holders to build larger vessels, 

 external pressure from nonlicense holders for 

 permission to enter the fishery. 



The following decade was marked by con- 

 tinual modification of the regulatoiy system 

 as the fishery expanded beyond the most san- 

 guine anticipations of anyone connected with 

 it in the early 1900's (see Figure 1). The 1949 

 fishery law was explicit as to the number of 

 craft that could be licensed, the 1950 law as 

 to the number that could be larger than 100 

 tons. The upper limit of 300 craft over 100 

 tons in size had already been approached. The 

 only expansion possible without a new law 

 from the National Diet was of tonnage within 

 the framework of the existing law. Subsequent 

 laws and administrative orders based on them 

 were numerous and increasingly complex. No 

 attempt will be made to treat all of these in 

 detail ; to do so would become extremely tedious. 

 However, the first two are covered in some 

 detail to show the pattern set for expansion 

 of the fleet. 



THOUSAND 

 TONS I 



L 



_L 



_L 



51 52 53 5l4 55 56 57 58 59 6o 61 



62 



_L. 



_1_ 



J_ 



_1_ 



63 6U 65 66 67 



Figure 1. — Landings of tuna and other species by sl<ipjack pole-and line 

 craft and by tuna longliners, 19.51-67. Data for 19.')1-1961 from Masuda 

 (1962, p. :{61), and for 1962-1967 from Japanese Tuna Fisheries Federa- 

 tion (1968 and 1969). 



148 



