36 THE IMPOVERISHMENT OF THE SEA. 



§ i. Number of Traivling Smacks. 



Leaving the question of steam trawlers for later consideration, it 

 appeared, upon detailed examination, that first class sailing trawlers 

 are practically limited to the ports mentioned in Table E. The returns 

 also assign a number of these boats to the fisheries from London 

 (Shadwell), Hastings,* Eastbourne, Shoreham, Newlyn, Ilfracombe, 

 Milford, Holyhead, and Bangor. But the figures for Shadwell in reality 

 indicate the numbers of trawlers supplying the Shadwell carriers, the 

 few boats at Eastbourne trawl for a very short portion of the year, and 

 none of the remaining ports possess sailing trawlers of their own. 

 The Hastings trawlers hail from Eye ; the Shoreham boats partly from 

 Lowestoft and partly from Brixham ; the JSTewlyn, Hfracombe, Milford, 

 and, to some extent, Tenby boats from Brixham and Plymouth ; the 

 Holyhead, and, probably, Bangor boats from Douglas, Liverpool, Fleet- 

 wood, and Carnarvon. 



As regards the determination of the actual numbers of trawlers 

 owned at the various ports, no difficulty was experienced in regard 

 to the ports of the South and West Coasts, since, with the exceptions 

 just mentioned, the number of trawlers estimated by the collectors to be 

 working from the various ports was found to correspond to all intents 

 and purposes with the total of first class vessels, less steam fishing 

 vessels, registered at the ports. The same remark applies to Ramsgate, 

 which, so far as trawling is concerned, should be included among the 

 East Coast ports, owing to the position of the fishing grounds usually 

 frequented by the Eamsgate trawlers. 



But there were considerable difficulties in determining exactly the 

 number of trawlers at the remaining ports on the East Coast, principally 

 due to the uncertainties as to the number of local vessels engaged in 

 the drift fisheries from each port. It is, of course, well known that 

 these fisheries are pursued by a nomad fleet composed of Lowestoft, 

 Yarmouth, Scottish, Manx, and Cornish vessels ; and as the collector's 

 estimate of the number of vessels engaged in these fisheries from Yar- 

 mouth or Lowestoft does not discriminate between the local and the 

 non-local boats, it was impossible to use the method of comparing the 

 total of the collector's returns with the registered total in order to 

 decide whether his estimates of the trawlers included any proportion 

 of boats from other ports. 



Fortunately, in the most difficult case (Lowestoft), it was possible 



• The trawlers for Hastings in 1891 arc returned as follows: "Steam, 20 ; second class, 

 50." As the collector remarks that "the twenty first class smacks are from Rye," and as 

 neither Rye nor Hastings ever possessed more than three steam trawlers, it is obvious that 

 the figures sliould be "Steam, 2 ; first class, 20 ; second class, 50," the numbers approxi- 

 mating to the returns for Rye as in other years. 



