DIFFICULTIES AND REMEDIES 



some of the tales lost nothing in the telling ; but 

 there was little doubt that the men employed in 

 ordinary fishing did at times make exceptional in- 

 comes, and certainly the industry lost none of its 

 well-known hazard. 



If a man had a share in the catches and was not 

 merely a paid hand, with limited wages, then he 

 might and often did receive large sums of money as 

 his part of the vessel's proceeds. 



Remarkable figures were given relating to the 

 earnings of Hull skippers, who were paid a per- 

 centage of the value of their catches, this averaging 

 £10 on the .£100, though some skippers, having a 

 different arrangement, received even more than that 

 proportion. One well-known Hull skipper was 

 known to have earned more than £25,000 during 

 the first three years of the war, another £15,000 in 

 two years ; while the balance-sheet of a local firm of 

 trawler owners credited one of the skippers with 

 £S,ooo during the year which the accounts covered. 

 All the skippers had shared in the luck of the fish- 

 ing, and they did not hesitate to say that they had 

 earned all they had got, in view of the perils of 

 fishing in war-time. 



At the time these statements were made it was 

 reported that men engaged in the Loch Fyne fish- 

 ing, where prices had risen to unprecedented rates, 

 had cleared £3,000 j n considerably less than a year ; 

 and some of the }-ounger men who had only a share 

 in a boat were known to have made £750 in the same 

 period. 



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