118 SEA FISHERIES 



league, or 6,077 yards. All the European Powers- 

 Great Britain, France, Germany, Belgium, Holland, 

 Denmark, Sweden adhering to the Convention of the 

 Hague (1883) accept this limit, saving that Norway and 

 Sweden have retained 4 miles as the distance of the 

 limit from low- water. "In the case of bays," says 

 Clause II. of the Convention, "the radius of 3 miles 

 shall be measured from a straight line drawn across 

 the bay as near as possible to the entrance, at the first 

 point where the width does not exceed 10 miles." 

 The abundance and almost constant presence of fisher- 

 men of different nationalities in the North Sea of some 

 120,000 men each year has resulted in legislation which 

 affects its whole area. The Hague Convention took all 

 useful precautions that property in lost or entangled 

 nets should be respected ; it organised a system of 

 numbering and marking all vessels, and created an 

 international service of protection and inspection by 

 means of the warships of the signatory Powers. In 

 France this service is confided to the naval station of 

 the Channel and the North Sea. It is undertaken by 

 a despatch-boat, the Ibis, and two sometime trawlers, 

 the Estafette and the Sentinelle, for the North Sea, and 

 a torpedo-boat, the Mangini, for the Channel. 



These legislative measures are in principle designed to 

 sum up the previous regulations and serve as a starting- 

 point for new. As long ago as the reign of Henri III. 

 an edict forbade the use of drag-nets or trawls along 

 the coast. Under Louis XIV. in 1681 and the Re- 

 public in 1790 this prohibition was repeated. From 

 1818 to 1830 trawling was forbidden in the road- 

 stead of Toulon. Finally the decree of 1862, which was 

 apparently a mitigated version of the decree of 1853, 

 prohibited generally and absolutely the use of the trawl 



