FISHING NATIONS AND THE FISHERIES 289 



poor little cutters by motor-boats. For many years 

 the tunny fishers and the crews of trading vessels have 

 testified to the presence of sardines in the open sea, 

 even where none are to be found along the coast. 

 The obvious thing is to go in search of them. In the 

 time of sailing boats the sardine fisheries of Arcachon 

 barely existed. It is the motor-boat that has made the 

 industry prosper the motor-boat, manned as a rule by 

 men who had no seafaring traditions, who were not 

 even seamen, but who, in spite of that fact, or because 

 of it, resolutely made daily trips of thirty to forty miles 

 out to sea in search of the sardine. Nor is this all. It 

 has been proved a score of times to the Breton fishermen 

 that they can fish without rogue. M. Fabre-Domergue 

 himself, in August, 1907, conducted some decisive ex- 

 periments before their eyes in the straits of Groix ; using 

 a Guezennec seine, he took at one haul 1,200 anchovies 

 and 2,000 sardines, while the fishermen round about, 

 who were of course using rogue for bait, took nothing 

 at all. Next day the seine was destroyed by the crew 

 of a Concarneau boat ! Every time seines have been 

 used they have come to the same end : the Breton 

 fishermen will not stomach them at any price. There 

 are 23,000 fishermen concentrated round Camaret and 

 Les Sables d'Olonne ; and 1,500 workmen, without 

 counting the women and girls who work in the factories 

 or the labourers. They form, with their families, a 

 population of 200,000 persons, and they do nothing 

 and wish to do nothing but engage in a single fishery 

 and live by a single fishery : namely, the sardine fishery. 

 The truth is, they are too many and the fish are too few. 

 They are stifled by their own numbers : every attempt 

 at progress is doomed to futility. One is tempted to 

 compare them to the fish they capture ; to those banks 



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