OF THE GRIMSBY TRAWL FISHERY. 341 
steps to check the evil of which complaints were made, but other 
action was being taken in the meanwhile. ‘The Marine Biological 
Association, although its activity is in the main directed to the 
prosecution of what would generally be termed strictly scientific 
pursuits, has always given prominence to the study of those 
organisms which are of importance to our fisheries. Thus, even 
before the Laboratory was completed, my colleague, Mr. Cunningham, 
had commenced his studies of the development and life-histories of 
the fishes which form the object of the fishing industry of Plymouth 
and the neighbouring coast—studies which have been continued 
without intermittence down to the present time. I allude only to 
those investigations which have a practical bearing such as appeals 
at once to the intelligence of every one, though it may be claimed 
with perfect truth that there is no item of marine biology that has 
not its economic importance directly or indirectly, in that due appre- 
ciation of the conditions of marine life without which no rational 
treatment of fishery questions can ever be attempted. 
As may be supposed, the agitation in connection with the alleged 
deterioration of the fisheries came early under the notice of the 
Council. Complaints of the scarcity of fish, and of the injury 
inflicted by certain methods of fishing other than those used by 
plaintiffs, are matters of immemorial antiquity, but the present 
agitation was distinctly original in character. It had its origin, as 
usual, amongst those interested in one particular method of fishing, 
viz. trawling ; but it differed from all other known fishery grievances 
in that the complaints of the trawlers, and of those who dealt in 
trawl-fish, were directed, not against some other body of fishermen, 
but against themselves. 
The trawler, of course, has long been the recognised piscatorial 
scapegoat, reviled by the inshore line-fisherman with an energy 
which is usually in inverse ratio to that with which he pursues his 
own calling, and condemned with scant ceremony by the amateur 
“naturalist ”? and the public at large. But on this occasion, as I 
have said, the trawler was his own accuser, and it must be noted 
that the agitation originated with, and was practically confined to, 
the ports of Grimsby and Hull, the two greatest trawling centres of 
the North Sea, which is, of course, by far the most important 
trawling district. Other trawling communities, if aware that they 
were doing excessive damage, at all events did not consider that the 
remedy lay beyond their own powers. 
An agitation conducted by one class against another obviously 
invites the suspicion that it is based chiefly on motives of self- 
interest, without any particular regard for the welfare of the com- 
munity at large; but in a case like the present, though self-interest 
