OUR FISHERIES 71 



damage is attributed, often by those who not only have no 

 interest in trawling, but are concerned with the profits from 

 other styles of fishing. It is urged that the trawl destroys vast 

 quantities of undersized, immature fish before they are of any 

 real value for purposes of food, and before they have even 

 once been able to spawn, and also that it tears up the nurseries 

 of the young fish. The critics of the trawl used to add that 

 this villainous net also destroyed vast quantities of valuable 

 fish-spawn, because the few demersal fish-eggs, often lying in 

 masses on the foreshore, as will be seen later, attracted atten- 

 tion much sooner than the majority of floating eggs. When 

 it was found that of all our valuable food-fishes the herring 

 alone deposits heavy, sinking eggs, opinion veered round, and 

 the trawler was declared perfectly acquitted of all blame. Later 

 still, however, some one discovered that the cod and haddock 

 repair in immense numbers to the spawning-grounds of her- 

 rings to gorge themselves on the ova, and it was also found 

 that the trawler, knowing this perfectly well, also took his nets 

 there and caught the cod and haddock at their meal. It is 

 extremely doubtful whether, even if the trawl were to go over 

 such beds of herring-spawn as those on the Ballantrae Bank, 

 where herrings have deposited their heavy, clinging eggs as 

 long as men remember, much damage would accrue to the 

 spawn, for it sticks to stones and weeds, and is thrown back 

 with them when the debris from the trawl is heaved overboard. 

 It is very doubtful, also, whether the sea is being emptied quite 

 so rapidly as some would have us believe. That there is some 

 ground for apprehension in the rapidity with which combines 

 and capital are possessing themselves of the fishing industry, 

 as of most others — though in this case they do not come from 

 over the Atlantic — can hardly be denied ; but this is a grievance 

 that calls for remedy by the political economist and not from 

 the laboratory. When we consider how infinitely vast is the 

 sea, and behind it its greater self, the ocean, we may surely 

 take heart when folks would tell us that the supply of fish is 



