324 DEEP-SEA FISHING. 



say ^ — " The selected years of bad fishing, l)roiiglit as 

 proofs that trawling was destroying the fishery, have, 

 when examined, no application to the question, as an 

 equal number of years of quite as bad fishing are found 

 in every decennial period before the system of (sean) 



trawling had been discovered (Sean) trawling 



for herring has been an important means of cheapening 

 fish to the consumer, by the large and sudden takes, 

 and has thrown into the market an abundant suj^ply 

 of wholesome fresh fish at prices which enable the 

 poor to enjoy them without having to come into com- 

 petition with the curer. It is this circumstance which, 

 in our opinion, has produced the demand for repressive 

 legislation, for the gains of the drift-net fishermen are 

 much affected by the sudden and great captures of the 

 (sean) trawler, who, working with less capital and with 

 a more productive kind of labour, is able to undersell 

 the drift-net fishermen, and to derange the market for 

 the curers." 



It happened that in 1860, the last year of sean- 

 trawling before its entire suppression, the fishery in 

 Lochfyne was the largest ever known there; in 1861 it 

 fell ofP, but in 1862 it was again very large, and that 

 was followed by fluctuations as before, although the 

 drift-men then had it all their own way. In the mean- 

 time the recommendations of the two Commissions were 

 embodied in an Act jDassed in 1867,^ by which any kind 

 of herring net with what was then the legal mesh was 

 permitted ; and by the Sea Fisheries Act, 1868, that 

 last restriction as to mesh was removed, and the fisher- 

 men were allowed to fish with any kind of net they 

 liked. It is impossible, however, to make people con- 



^ Report of the lioyal Sea Fisheries Coniinissioners, ]i. 43 (1806). 

 ^ 30 & 31 Viet., c. 52. 



