ABERDEEN TRAWLING STATISTICS 



FoK THE Years 1914, 1915, 1916. 



Introduction and Notes by 

 D'ARCY WENTWORTH THOMPSON. 



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Our last review of the Aberdeen Trawling Statistics dealt with the 

 year 1913, and in it we discussed the steady and uninterrupted 

 growth of the Port of Aberdeen and of its trawling industry up to 

 that year. Let us now deal, briefly, with the events of the last three 

 years : that is to say with the changes which accompanied the out- 

 break of war, and with the manner in which, in this particular 

 market, the daily supplies of fish have since been forthcoming in 

 spite of all manner of danger and difficulty. 



EOREIGN TkAWLEKS AT ABERDEEN. 



In our 1913 Report, it was stated that "A curious and signifi- 

 cant feature of the Aberdeen market during the last three or four 

 years has been the great increase in number and importance of the 

 German landings at the Port." Further, it was shown that the 

 Germans had obtained a practical monopoly of the Iceland and 

 White Sea fishings as far as the Aberdeen market was concerned, 

 and that the Scottish trawl-masters could no longer hold their own 

 on these distant fishing-groi>iids. It is a good deal easier now than 

 it was in 1913 to understand the situation such as it was, and to 

 discover the motives which led the Germans to» develop their 

 splendid fleet of ocean-going trawlers and to keep it employed under 

 circumstances ^n which our own people could not work to a profit. 



This remarkable and unfortunate state of matters continued up 

 to the time of the declaration of war ; indeed the German landings 

 continued to increase in number, for between January and the end 

 of July 1914 there were within 10 per cent, as many of them as 

 during the whole year 1913, as the following Table shows: — 



TABLE A. 



Number of Trawlers, British and Foreign, landing at Aberdeen, 

 from Iceland and Faeroe, during the years 1913, 1914. 



Iceland. Faeroe. 



1913. 1914. 1913. 1914. 



British. . . .37 42 449 680 



Belgian 14 



Dutch .... 2 1 



German . . , 530 483 



Total . 569 540 449 680^ 



voj'ages iu 1913, and 88 in 1£ 

 M & G Ltd Wt 1480/50 10-17 f.OO G 2 



* Including 60 voyages iu 1913, and 88 iu 1914, which fished only in part at 

 Faeroe. 



