314 STATEMENTS BY TRAWLERS. [CHAP. vn. 



there will not be a fish left. It is the same with the other 

 fish-banks, and that accounts for the trawlers now coming to 

 this neighbourhood. They have destroyed the Hartlepool 

 and Sunderland ground, and now they have come to a small 

 patch off here, and they will sweep it clean too. A trawl- 

 boat will sometimes catch five tons a day ; but on the 

 average a ton and a half ; but as a great deal of that has ta 

 be thrown overboard, they only bring about ten cwt. to 

 market. The boats belonging to Cullercoats, carrying the 

 same number of hands as the trawlers, only catch upon the 

 average about five stones. The fish caught in the trawl are 

 not fit for the market, as the insides are broke and the galls 

 burst and running through them. " If I had my way, I 

 would pass an Act of Parliament to do away with trawling, 

 and oblige every man to fish with hooks and lines. I think 

 that would increase the quantity of fish for the country, 

 because the young fish would not take the hooks. I am not 

 aware that if the small boats get five stones a day it would at 

 all diminish the supply of fish for the market ; but if the 

 trawling is allowed to continue that very soon will." 



Thomas Bolam, on being examined, said : " I have followed 

 the herring-fishing for twenty-one years, and the white-fishing 

 six years. In the course of those six years I have found that 

 the supply of white fish has gradually diminished both in the 

 number and size of the fish. In twenty years' experience 

 in the herring-fishing I find a fearful diminution in the total 

 quantity caught. The shoals of herring are now only about 

 one-third the size they were when I first commenced the fish- 

 ing. At that time we used to get 14,000 or 15,000 ; now the 

 length of 4000 or 5000 is thought a good take. I attribute 

 the falling-off to the existence of the trawling system." 



Many other fishermen gave similar evidence. A fisher- 

 man named Bulmer, residing at Hartlepool, said that the white 

 fish were not only scarcer, but that they were deteriorating in 



