74 FISHERIES OF THE NORTH SEA 



readier labour supply. There is more 

 of action, control of effort ; the cost of 

 production decreases with the increased 

 quantity of traffic ; the time factor is 

 speeded up, and nowhere is this so im- 

 portant as among manufactures of com- 

 modities of a highly perishable nature. 

 Take the map of Britain and mark the ten 

 largest fishing ports; note the distances 

 between the fishing grounds on the one 

 hand and our large centres 'of population 

 on the other ; their positions are admirable, 

 the railway connections direct. 



The fishing port is the * channel between 

 the source of supply and the ultimate con- 

 sumer of the produce ; it is the depot where 

 the huge heterogeneous niass of sea produce 

 is sorted out for our different cities. It 

 necessarily follows that if the ten chief 

 channels are enlarged and improved, and 

 all efforts centralized there, the transport 

 and delivery of the produce will be much more 

 efficient than if the effort were dispersed 

 over a hundred smaller places. For success, 

 efforts should be concentrated 'in a small 

 number of large ports, and not, as in the 



