Catch of Cape fishermen for the year 191 1 — 

 Cape Town, East London, Mossel Bay, 

 Port EUzabeth (from Census return) .. 116,000 cwts. 

 Catch of Cape trawlers for the year 1913 — 



(from Customs return) . . . . . . 125,000 ,, 



The above considerations seem to indicate that the direction 

 in which any further substantial development of the fishing 

 industry of the Cape Province may be looked for is in the 

 opening up of new though distant fishing areas, which have long 

 been suspected to exist in the Cape seas. There is scope 

 enough for improvement in the older established fisheries 

 closer at hand, and this is receiving attention by Government, 

 chiefly in the construction of new or impioved fishing harbours 

 and stations. For any rapid and serious advance, however, 

 attention m\ist be turned to the exploiting of the larger re- 

 sources of the Cape seas. Certain areas have been explored, 

 and have yielded the results indicated, but a great deal still 

 remains to be done. This is indicated in the accompanying 

 charts (p. 167), wnich shows the area surveyed on the part of 

 the coast, where the chief trawling ground was found. The 

 east and west coasts did not prove so promising as this region 

 on the south coast, and there still remains here large tracts 

 to the south and east of it, which are as yet unknown, and on 

 which further good results will probably be found. 



It has been said that enough has now been done on the part 

 of the Government for the fishing industry in the opening up 

 of these new fishing areas, and efforts at further progress may 

 now be relaxed, leaving it to private enterprise to continue 

 and develop the work. This argument was brought forward 

 at the very beginning of the work of the Pieter Faure, and 

 threatened at one time to bring it to a premature close, even 

 before it had begun. The apparent reasonableness of this 

 view has in many other instances proved a serious bar to 

 progress. The facts of the case are, however, against it, and 

 it is to be remembered that the object of private enterprise is 

 to increase private prosperity, there being no desire to jeopar- 

 dise this by showing the way to other private enterprises. 

 Trawlers have no more desire to open up new fishing grounds 

 for the benefit of the community than a diamond company has 

 to exploit the mineral, in which they are interested, for the 

 good of the whole. 



The continuation of the Marine Biological Survey is also 

 desirable for reasons other than the discovery of new fishing 

 grounds. A knowledge of additional facts with regard to the 

 habits and life history of fish and marine animals generally 

 is urgently required in connection with purely practical, as 



