FISHING NATIONS AND THE FISHERIES 285 



usually fish in Icelandic waters will only make their 

 first voyage or so thither the most profitable, as the 

 results are sold in France during Lent and will then 

 come to the Newfoundland banks. This, of course, 

 applies only to such vessels as can carry sufficient coal 

 for the voyage across the Atlantic ; that is, those which 

 can carry at least 100 or 120 tons of fuel/' This 

 prophecy was correct ; last year twenty-two large French 

 trawlers fished the banks. This year the results have 

 been positively brilliant. Yet the increased tonnage of 

 large trawlers increases their working expenses without 

 increasing their captures in the same proportion, so 

 that some shipowners are asking if it would not be 

 better to equip small steam trawlers, which would spend 

 the greater part of the year on the banks, employed 

 solely in fishing, not in fishing and then transporting 

 their captures to France. 



The Newfoundland fishery extends not only over the 

 banks, but also along the old French shore, which is 

 French no longer, since the Anglo-French agreement 

 of April 8, 1906, along the east coast, in the creeks of 

 Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, and in the estuary of the 

 Saint Lawrence. 



Four or five years ago it was hoped that a great part 

 of the Newfoundland fleet might be sent instead to the 

 Baie du Levrier, in Morocco. Experience, however, has 

 shown that the two regions are so fundamentally 

 diverse that one could not expect them to yield the 

 same products. The Baie du Levrier, and almost the 

 whole area of the Atlanto-Saharan banks, supports 

 stupendous quantities of fish, but no true cod. All 

 kinds of fish swarm there, and nearly all the species 

 found there are found in plenty : bastard mackerel, 

 tunny, mullet, bar, rays, &c. 



