346 EXAMINATION OF THE PRESENT STATE 
which are by law excluded not only from the territorial waters, but 
also from some grounds which can hardly be said to he within the 
territorial limit at all, take very little part in fishing the grounds 
frequented by vessels from the east coast of England. An occasional 
Scotch steam-trawler may be found fishing the southern part of the 
North Sea, and landing her fish at an English port, but otherwise 
the industries of the two nations do not seem to commingle much. 
Consequently I do not think it would be profitable to enter here 
into a discussion of the Scotch trawl-fishery, even if I possessed any 
special qualification for the task. 
The trawling industry of the east coast of England centres itself 
at various points along the coast, which are roughly divisible into a 
northern and southern group. The northern group comprises Grimsby 
and Hull, and several ports of minor importance, while Lowestoft 
and Yarmouth are the chief centres of the southern group. At 
certain seasons of the year, vessels from all ports may be found on 
the same grounds ; but, speaking generally, those of the northern 
group are occupied on more northerly grounds than the rest. 
The relative importance of the different trawling ports may be 
judged from the subjoined list of the numbers of boats owned and 
resorting to each. ‘The figures, however, have at best only an ap- 
proximate value, since of the total number of boats belonging to, say 
Grimsby, there is nothing to show how many may have been 
employed away from the North Sea, and for how long, during any 
one year. Again, in the number of boats resorting to a port, the 
statisticians of the Board of Trade (from whose returns this column 
has been taken), if they possess any information as to how often 
boats belonging to other places visited the port in question in the 
course of the year, do not take the public into their confidence. It 
appears to be the peculiar function of the Fisheries Department of 
the Board of Trade to formulate statistics which shall be just suf- 
ficiently complete to bring into strong relief the importance of what 
is omitted from them. 
The preponderance of Grimsby as a fishing port is entirely inde- 
pendent of the drift-net fishery, since it sends not a single vessel to 
that industry. It rests almost entirely on the deep-sea trawl and 
line fisheries, although a certain number of its first-class vessels are 
engaged in deep-sea oyster dredging and whelking. Hull, though 
owning a less number of vessels than Yarmouth or Lowestoft, is 
only second to Grimsby in the trawl and line fisheries, since the whole 
of its fleet is devoted to these industries, and its large fleet of steam 
trawlers much more than compensates for its inferiority to southern 
ports in the number of its sailing trawlers. 
The conditions under which the deep-sea trawl-fishery is carried 
