24 DEEP-SEA FISHING. 



answer tins if the argument were founded on the books 

 of the smack-owner and not merely on opinion. It 

 would necessarily follow that, although with a dimi- 

 nished yield of fish, about four-fifths of it being of the 

 inferior kinds mostly consumed by the poorer classes, 

 the price obtained for it by the fisherman had risen to 

 such an extent as not only to cover the increased cost 

 of all his ordinary necessities, but also to enable him to 

 build new boats of a larger size, and in almost every 

 particular of a more costly construction. We have no 

 reason to believe that this is the case. The trawders 

 freely admit that the rise in price has been a great 

 stimulus to their fishing during recent ^xars, but there 

 has been no complaint of any decrease in their takes of 

 fish. AVe have inquired particularly on this point at 

 Hull^ Grimsby, Eamsgate, Brixham, and Dublin with 

 the same result, and we have the authority of Mr. 

 R. T. Yivian, the well-known smack-owner at Hull, for 

 saying that the new smacks now in use, when they 

 have large gear in proportion to their size (which is 

 not always the case) catch more fish than was taken on 

 an average by trawlers ten years ago. He adds in 

 a communication made to us at the end of 1873 : — "I 

 have two new vessels that have done better for twelve 

 months just expired than I remember any of mine ever 

 doing before." This was in answer to a specific in- 

 quiry we made about the quantity of fish now cauglit 

 by each vessel compared with what was taken in former 

 years. 



There seems little doubt, however, that inshore line- 

 fishing has for some years past been less successful 

 than was formerly tlie case. But this by no means 

 applies to the whole of our co;ists, or to all kinds offish. 

 The haddock on the north-east of England and the east 



