12 



THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE SEA 



Fig. 28. Chart showing the Fishing-grounds frequented by British trawlers. Depths 

 under 100 metres represented hi black ; those from 100 to 200 metres in shading. 

 From Report of the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries for 1906. 



paratively speaking, more and more exhausted, the vessels 

 were compelled to go farther and farther away in order to 

 maintain the supply. 1 The grounds at Iceland, now so impor- 



1 A leading representative of the trawling industry, Mr G. L. Alward, thus de- 

 Bcribed the process to the Committee of the Lords in 1904. The diminution, he said, 

 was from over-fishing, " first of all in our original old fishing-grounds. We denuded 

 those, and found less year by year as time went on. We then discovered new 

 grounds, with, in process of time, the same result. In going back original!}', say 

 to about 1830 to about 1890, we found, at ground after ground, after being fished for 

 a few years, the same results ; the fish became scarcer and scarcer." Report, p. 78. 



