98 BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES. 
NORTH SEA REGULATIONS. 
In the meantime a separate series of enactments applicable to the North 
Sea has been put in force, dealing with a wider range of subjects than were 
contemplated either in 1839 or in 1867. None of these enactments, however, 
affects the question of overfishing. They deal with the human aspects of the 
question only. And, curiously enough, one of the earliest of them was brought 
about, not by overintensity of rivalry between competing fishermen, leading 
to acts of hostility, but by undue familiarity based on mistaken notions of 
friendship and resulting in abuses of a social and moral nature which called 
for interference. 
Out of a system of exchange and barter, at sea, of fish, clothing, and other 
commodities, there had grown up a practice of sending among the fishing fleets 
in the North Sea a number of vessels, known as “‘ coopers,”’ specially fitted for the 
supply of intoxicating liquors, which found a market among certain of the 
fishermen, being sold for money where cash was available, or exchanged for fish 
or other articles. Such opportunities were especially frequent in the case of the 
trawling vessels fishing on what is known as the “fleeting” system. Instead of 
returning to port after each fishing trip the boats of certain companies fish 
together on a given ground, where they are visited day by day by specially fitted 
“carriers” or “‘cutters’’ which go the round of the fleet, collect the whole catch, 
and straightway steam back to deliver it in the fish market, returning again to the 
fleet and repeating these operations as long as fish remain sufficiently plentiful on 
the ground. In this way a fleet of trawlers may remain at sea for considerable 
periods, and in these and other circumstances, due to the development of the 
industry, the facilities for surreptitious traffic in drink not only led to the fisher- 
men being exposed to great temptation to dishonesty, but conduced to scenes 
of drunkenness, to acts of violence, to neglect of duty, to insubordination, and 
to danger and disaster in which other and innocent persons were frequently 
involved. 
The result of all this was a convention between the United Kingdom and 
certain neighboring powers known as the North Sea Liquor Traffic Convention of 
1889, whereby heavy penalties were imposed on any persons supplying intoxi- 
cants or tobacco to fishing vessels, except under license from the duly constituted 
authorities. In practice the issue of these licenses is limited to a few vessels 
employed as “mission”? or “hospital’’ ships in connection with the trawling 
fleets, whose visits afford sufficient opportunity for the supply of such liquors as 
are needed for medicinal and other legitimate purposes. The consequence has 
been the entire disappearance of the “coopers” and the almost total abolition of 
the evils which followed in the train of their misdirected enterprise. 
Equally satisfactory results have followed on the adoption of other inter- 
national regulations, for the repression of acts of unprovoked injury to fishing 
