NORTH SEA INVESTIGATIONS. 391 



the manner in which the trawl is handled by German and Danish 

 boats no injury is done to the unmarketable fish, whilst the saleable 

 part of the catch appears to be exported chiefly to London. Hence 

 the proposed measures of prohibition would give no advantage to 

 these nations. The German steam trawlers, according to my in- 

 formation, do not molest the small plaice at all. Of the proceedings 

 of the Dutch bombs I have little knowledge, but from the small 

 size of their gear, their share in the destruction cannot be a very 

 lai'ge one. Foreign-caught fish, except Norwegian salmon and 

 mackerel and Dutch soles, including only a small percentage of 

 U7idersized fish, rarely come to the Grimsby market, but on two 

 occasions large consignments of small plaice, comprising, as I 

 compute, some 31,000 fish, were sent from Denmark, and recently 

 a consignment of turbot has arrived from Norway. These last fish 

 were about 800 in number, all undersized, viz. from 9| to 17 inches, 

 whilst 4 were only from 8 to 9 inches. This is the only instance 

 which has come under my notice of any considerable number of 

 turbot less than 12 inches being present in the market, and, as we 

 have seen, our own fishermen were not concerned in it. 



The last and perhaps the most important objection arises from the 

 difiiculty in allowing for that variation in the size of fish of the same 

 species on different parts of our own coast to which Mr. Calderwood 

 alluded in the last number of this Journal, p. 208. The impossi- 

 bility of utilising a uniform size lioiit for all districts is sufficiently 

 exemplified by the limit of 11 inches for the plaice proposed by the 

 Conference of last February, which was the result of a compromise 

 between the trade representatives of the North Sea and south and 

 west coast districts. While perhaps unnecessarily high for the 

 Plymouth district, we have seen that it is altogether too small for 

 the North Sea. The difficulty of having different limits, of local 

 application, will only be felt at such a central port or market as 

 London, to which fish are brought, whether by rail or sea, from 

 all districts, but with proper organisation the obstacle does not 

 seem insuperable. It is conceivable that the law might be evaded 

 by running cutters from boats fishing in one district to the parts 

 of another, where the limit was lower, but it is little likely that the 

 firms which are in a position to undertake them, would lend them- 

 selves to such operations. There is not the slightest reason to 

 apprehend a general conspiracy of evasion amongst the fishermen, 

 and the boats which respected the law would form a more efficient 

 police than all the cruisers in the navy, so far as one may judge by 

 the conditions on the Scotch coast, where convictions of trawlers for 

 infringement of the territorial restriction are frequently secured by 

 the evidence of local line fishermen. 



