REMARKS ON TRAWLING. 323 
fish profitably within a moderate distance of the land; and were 
the fishes to become so thinned that, with all the skill and energy 
shown in managing the ships, the returns proved unsatisfactory, 
trawling might voluntarily disappear. There is no reliable evidence, 
however, that before such a result would happen irreparable injury 
would have been done to the sea-fisheries.” 
Now, at that time there were in Scotland a total of 61* trawlneg- 
vessels—of which probably about one-half were steamers, the other 
half being sailing boats or vessels used for trawling. The exact 
numbers cannot be obtained, but there were from 12 to 20 boats used in 
trawling at St. Andrew’s, 6 to 8 came from Broughty Ferry, 2 or 3 
each from St. Monan’s and Cellardyke, and others existed in the 
Moray Firth. Trawling, indeed, at St. Andrew’s was an old custom, 
the Buckhaven fishermen having introduced it early in the century, 
and subsequently the local fishermen carried it on more or less 
regularly, generally trawling in September and October, and in 
March and April, though occasionally much longer. The frequent 
presence, however, just before the period of the Trawling Com- 
mission, of 10 or 12 powerful steam-trawlers to compete with them 
on their own ground quite altered the aspect of affairs. The 
energy with which the steam-trawlers generally worked —for trawl- 
ing went on by night as well as by day, and in weather unsuitable for 
the liners—introduced in Scotland a new era into the department. 
Fishing was to be carried out no longer by more or less independent 
crews, bound together by blood-relationship or other ties, and 
whose working hours were largely regulated by the weather and 
tides, or their own convenience and necessities. Moreover, their 
whole domestic life was interwoven with the time-honoured pursuit. 
Their wives and daughters Jaboriously baited the hooks and arranged 
the lines in the baskets for “ shooting,” they gathered the “bent” 
grass for separating the layers of the line, and with the sons dug 
lob-worms or procured mussels for bait. In the olden time, indeed, 
their wives and daughters were likewise their fish-merchants, and 
disposed of their captures to the best advantage. Now (1883) 
active and powerful vessels, propelled by steam, and thus more or 
less independent of the weather—manned by a captain responsible 
to owners or their manager, a crew bound together only by dis- 
cipline and pay, and whose fishing apparatus required no bait, 
appeared on the field. Further, instead of following the pursuit on 
grounds familiar to generations before them, the new fishermen not 
only ranged over these, but sought new and sometimes more distant 
fields. Capitalists took up the question, and fitted out powerful 
* The numbers are taken from the Report of the Select Committee of the House of 
Commons, 1893, p. 396. 
