As tuna longlining increased in importance 

 and became a year round activity, one could 

 easily have predicted that activities would 

 concentrate in a smaller number of ports. 

 Grounds for the year round tuna fishery were 

 so distant from Japan that no port had a 

 locational advantage of any significance in 

 reference to the grounds as was the case with 

 the live bait fishery. The main markets for 

 tuna were the canneries, export companies, 

 and the large urban population in the Tokyo 

 area. As craft became larger, smaller markets 

 were unable to handle the full load of most 

 vessels expeditiously, a factor that further 

 favored concentration. Concentration of eco- 

 nomic activities of the longliners in a few ports 

 thus would have been expected quite apart 

 from the regulatory system. 



The regulatory system as applied did, how- 

 ever, influence the regional pattern signifi- 

 cantly. Among the more readily apparent in- 

 fluences perhaps was that it hastened enlarge- 

 ment of craft and thus increased tendencies 

 toward concentration in the central ports. 

 Conversely, in another aspect, it tended to 

 favor continued dispersion of economic activi- 

 ties other than landing of the fish. This de- 

 rived from the fact that ownership of the fleet 

 was dispersed at the time licenses were issued. 

 Ties of Japanese fishermen, both economic 

 and social, to their home port are strong. A 

 man's boat is his livelihood and sale of the 

 right to use it is restricted by strong pressures 

 of tradition. That the value of the license in- 

 creased steadily during most of the period of 

 expansion meant that most holders, even in 

 more remote areas, were able to fund new 

 craft and expand along with the fishery. With- 

 out this source of funding, the longliners would 

 almost certainly have been concentrated in 

 all respects in the centrally located ports where 

 capital was more readily available and where 

 attention to the fishery would have been much 

 stronger. However, having been given the li- 

 censes, owners in outlying ports generally 

 kept pace with the switch to longlining; with- 

 out the license as security, lack of capital alone 

 probably would have been a major deterrent 

 to so doing. Landing and most resupplying 

 of vessels might be carried out in centrally 

 located ports such as Yaezu, Misaki, or Tokyo 

 but the economic stimulation from other activi- 



ties such as management, labor recruitment, 

 and expenditures by management and labor 

 largely accrued to the ports where the owner 

 of the license resided. As such, the fishery con- 

 tinued to contribute to regional economies to 

 a larger extent than if the regulatory system 

 had not existed. Thus, the net effect of the 

 regulatory system appears to have been a 

 conservative one working against an expected 

 tendency toward concentration in the major 

 market ports. 



Flow of Capital to Other Countries 



A predictable effect of a limited entry system 

 in a profitable fishery such as the tuna fishery 

 in which overall control of entry to the fishing 

 grounds is impossible would be a flow of 

 capital to other countries. This was recognized 

 early in the period of expansion and fairly 

 effective controls were developed to control 

 it, at least through 1963. The method used 

 was to restrict export of tuna longliners. The 

 craft themselves are not particularly complex 

 nor is the equipment used on them. However, 

 countries that had the industrial establish- 

 ment to build them, by and large were not 

 able to compete with the Japanese in the 

 fishery because of labor costs. Countries that 

 desired to enter the fishery and were in a favor- 

 able competitive position in reference to labor 

 costs were not able to build the vessels. Given 

 these conditions, strict controls on export of 

 longliners were used to prevent Japanese entre- 

 preneurs from transferring registration to 

 other countries and using Japanese or foreign 

 crews and, at the same time, retard the de- 

 velopment of the fishery by other countries. 

 Some transfer of registration was permitted 

 for operation by joint Japanese and foreign 

 companies from ports in the country of the 

 latter. However, conditions under which this 

 could be done were restricted severely; in a 

 1965 survey by the Fisheries Agency, only 17 

 vessels were found to be so operated (Com- 

 mercial Fisheries Review, 1966, p. 85). Pres- 

 sures to permit export, especially by shipyard 

 owners in Japan, were great, but were con- 

 tained until 1964. By this time, other nations, 

 especially Korea, were developing a capacity 

 to build longliners and the restrictions were 

 relaxed. 



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