INTERNATIONAL REGULATIONS OF FISHERIES ON THE HIGH SEAS. 89 
The PRESIDENT. This opens up a very important matter that is new to America 
and old to Europe. Are there some who are well acquainted with the situation in the 
North Sea who will contribute? Doctor Hoek, is it well for us to attempt to secure 
any preventive methods at present? 
Doctor HoEK. I hardly believe that. 
The PRESIDENT. You hardly believe that? Must we wait until it gets a little more 
serious? 
Doctor HorxK. Mr. President, in the North Sea they have been trawling now for 
such a long time, have they not? And the same complaints that just now have been 
brought forward have been put forth on twenty-five different occasions—on two 
hundred and fifty occasions. In several instances investigations have been made, and 
we have at the present moment an immense bulk of information, but hardly one of 
us dares to come forward with a conclusion, so difficult is the matter. It is so easy 
to say when a little fish is killed, “Oh, it is a pity,” and when a large quantity of 
young fish is killed to say it should not be permitted; yet it is a very curious thing 
that taken as a whole the quantity of flatfish taken from the North Sea of late years, 
while it is diminished, is by no means (so far as statistical information goes) so greatly 
diminished as you would expect from the alarming communications we have had for 
several years already on that point. I hardly believe we are sufficiently prepared here 
to discuss this difficult problem, and so I should prefer not to go into the details of the 
question, Mr. President. 
The PRESIDENT. We are very much obliged. 
Mr. Pau, Norts. Would it be possible to prevent the deep-sea trawling on the 
open seas—on the bank would it be a possibility? 
The PRESIDENT. You have heard the question of Mr. North. Is anyone here 
prepared to answer him? 
Mr. Fryer. Mr. President, I must congratulate you upon your skill as an angler. 
I never saw a fly more adroitly thrown over any fish than the fly you threw over Doctor 
Hoek; and I must equally congratulate Doctor Hoek upon having disposed in five 
sentences of so vast a question as that of the use and the alleged abuse of the trawl. 
I would only add to what he said that you should not only throw your fly over Doctor 
Hoek, but that you should keep your eye upon the work that he and his colleagues in 
Europe have been doing in investigating this question of trawling, more particularly 
in the North Sea. 
Of all the fisheries problems, so far as the high seas are concerned, the problem 
which is attracting the attention of the great fishing powers on the other side of the 
Atlantic is with regard to the question of the trawl. I think the answer to the question, 
“Whether it is possible to pass laws prohibiting trawling?’’ is undoubtedly in the 
affirmative. It is perfectly possible to pass laws prohibiting trawling, and it is per- 
fectly possible to enforce those laws within the territorial limits, provided you have 
got (I hope I am not treading on dangerous ground) a navy big enough to do it [laughter]; 
but to prohibit trawling in the extraterritorial waters, the waters in which international 
regulations are necessary, is quite another matter; and there, again, I would suggest 
that you watch very carefully the results of the investigations that have been con- 
ducted for the last seven years—investigations which some of the originators thought 
might have beet: brought to an end in less than half that period, but which they are 
recognizing must be carried on for a considerable period yet before even the answer 
to a single question can be given, namely, whether trawling is or is not detrimental. 
Mr. C. H. Wirson (New York). I wanted to say that our Canadian friends have 
made a confession here, through their able advocate, Mr. Evans, of Ontario. I think 
it decidedly un-American that we of the United States should not come halfway in 
admitting the fact that the fisheries of the Great Lakes on the United States side show 
quite the same percentage of depletion as those of the Dominion of Canada. I speak 
by the book. ‘Take the catch of whitefish alone on the Great Lakes, including St. 
