434 EXAMINATION OF THE PRESENT STATE 
of great value. If, for instance, there were a different size limit 
for soles in different districts, and large quantities of small ones 
could be caught, it might pay to run them to the district where the 
size limit was the smallest. But we are dealing with plaice, and 
plaice of less than 13 inches do not command much of a price any- 
where, while the best markets are on the east coast and at London. 
On this account North Sea boats, by running to ports on the south 
coast to sell their fish, would lose more in time and expenses than 
they gained by being able to sell the very small plaice. I should 
think that the southern shore of the mouth of the Thames would 
make a practical boundary as between the North Sea on the one 
hand, and the southern and south-western coasts on the other. 
Moreover, the prohibition of sale or landing with regard to districts 
would naturally be accompanied by enactment making it unlawful to 
evade the operation of the measure in the manner suggested, and no 
fishery officer worth his salt would find any difficulty in detecting 
an attempt to land fish from the Eastern grounds of the North Sea 
on the south coast, in the very improbable event of such an opera- 
tion being attempted. It is perhaps not too well understood by the 
general public, as well as by others who have less excuse for their 
ignorance, that there are certain local characters in flat-fishes which 
are pertectly well known to every one who has much experience of 
fish and fisheries; and we may at least credit those in authority 
with sufficient sense to choose their fishery officers only from 
amongst those who are qualified for the task. 
(ii) Extension of territorial limits. 
Next to the imposition of size limits, the scheme for restoring the 
fish supply which finds the greatest number of advocates is the 
closure of certain areas to trawling. In virtue of international law 
the boats of one nation are already excluded from the territorial 
waters of any other; in our own country, the District Committees 
in England, the Fishery Board in Scotland, and the Fishery Office 
in Ireland, have power to prohibit trawling in their respective spheres 
of influence. Of these powers the authorities in question have 
already very largely availed themselves ; whether they have done so 
with a view to the protection of immature fish, or to keeping Her 
Majesty’s peace as between trawlers and drift-net or line fishermen, 
does not greatly signify, though one may be permitted to express 
an abstract regret that the powers of a fishery authority should 
occasionally be degraded to the level of parochial politics. It is 
admitted that, in so far as concerns the North Sea trawling industry, 
the remedy is beyond the utmost territorial jurisdiction of our own 
