UNIfEAN SOCIETY OF LONDOlf. 23 



Even apart from questions of food-supply and public health, there 

 are wide applications both in the trades and in the arts. Many 

 industrial products of the sea of great value to man, such as tlie 

 pearl, the coral and the sponge fisheries of the world, are wholly 

 biological concerns susceptible of scientific treatment. The 

 Japanese have recently started an important coral fishery — a 

 fishery for the precious coral — on their southern coasts, where it 

 is now a growing industr}^ And the first thing they did was to 

 appoint two scientific men, well-known zoologists (Kishinouye 

 and Kitahara), to investigate thoroughly the animals concerned 

 and the conditions under which they hve, in order, to quote the 

 words of the .Japanese report, to " prevent exhaustion and make 

 it an endless source of profit." That is the action that an 

 enlightened Government in a countr}^ of advanced civilisatioa 

 will naturally take. 



Japan has an efficient Imperial Bureau of Fisheries and 

 employs many scientific men. The United States similarly has a 

 powerful Bureau of Fisheries, formerly the famous " Commission 

 of Fish and Fisheries." Germany and other European countries 

 have also well-equipped departments and institutions for fisheries 

 research supported by the State. That being so, it is an extra- 

 ordinary circumstance, and difficult to realise, that our own 

 powerful and wealthy country, having perhaps a greater stake in 

 the harvest of the sea than any other nation, has no adequate, 

 scientifically equipped department prepared to deal comprehen- 

 sively with sea-fisheries problems. Our Government department 

 of Fisheries, once at the Board of Trade, now a constituent part 

 of the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries, is admittedly not 

 organised and not equipped and not provided with tlie material 

 resources to undertake the necessary marine investigations. 



The Sea-Fisheries authorities around the coast, upon whom 

 devolves the administration and promotion of the local fisheries, 

 are subject in their actions to the supervision of the Central 

 Government, but are not provided with any funds from the 

 Treasury. It has been left to a few sea-coast Universities 

 and Marine Laboratories (St. Andrews, Plymouth, Cullercoats, 

 Liverpool) to conduct investigations on their own initiative and, 

 in the main, at their own expense. Recently, an International 

 scheme for the Exploration of the North Sea and adjoining waters 

 has been conducted jointly by our own and other neighbouring 

 Governments as a temporary agreement. 



As the period of five years for which this international engage- 

 ment was made ends in July, and as the question whether such 

 international work or a proposed national scheme of sea-fisheries 

 research will best suit the needs of this country is to be made the 

 subject of a Government enquiry, the present seems a fitting time 

 for scientific men who are interested in fishery questions to look 

 somewhat critically into the work that is being done, and determine 

 if possible how far the methods employed are adequate and are 

 calculated to vield reliable results. 



