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localities by the fishermen of the district and Corporations 
should be made. The laws which the fishermen required 
could be made known by the especial representatives of 
the class. 
Captain READ (Deal), who stated that he had had 
many years’ experience as a fisherman, having served his 
time as an apprentice fifty-three years ago, and lately as 
an officer of the Coastguard, said that he had been over 
some thousands of trawlers in his life, and while stationed 
at Morecambe Bay he had seen some hundreds of tons of 
immature fish caught by shrimpers, the fish being sold for 
manure at sixpence a bushel. He should like to see some- 
thing done to prevent the wholesale destruction of the 
food of man which was constantly occurring, and he had 
exhibited a net, for which he had received a diploma and 
silver medal. The mesh of this net was capable of being 
changed from a diamond to a square, thus allowing the 
immature fish to escape. 
Mr. GEORGE COWAN (Eyemouth) was very sorry to 
hear the report that had been given by previous speakers 
as to the destruction of immature fish. Mr. Jex had stated 
that formerly the fishermen of Yarmouth had merely to go 
to the Knowle, a distance of about twenty miles, to catch the 
fish, but now they had to go a distance of two hundred to 
three hundred miles, and he should like to know whether 
he intended to represent that that was because the ground 
had been cleared up by trawl-fishing. He had been a 
long-line and drift-net fisherman for over thirty years, and, 
notwithstanding what had been said upon the subject by 
Mr. Jex, he had scarcely ever seen a small fish taken by 
the long line. Many people had an idea that long-line 
fishing was of no importance, but he could assure them 
that the markets were chiefly supplied by the long-line 
