xx BRITISH FISHERIES 



Scotland 



Steam fishing vessels .... .1,572,338 



Sailing vessels ...... 994,552 



Fishing gear, nets (lines, etc.) . . . 881,278 



Total value 3,448,168 



These figures give a very bald idea as to the 

 importance of the fisheries in Great Britain, but 

 the reader must be content with them, and his 

 imagination, stimulated by their magnitude, will 

 more easily grasp the importance and the great 

 value of the national asset represented by the sea- 

 fisheries of the country. In comparing the three 

 divisions of the United Kingdom he must, how- 

 ever, bear many things in mind. 



The total number of vessels and persons engaged 

 in the fisheries in each country does not give a 

 quite correct idea of the respective values of the 

 fisheries. Thus, the number of vessels and men 

 employed in Scotland, and still more in Ireland, 

 is much greater in proportion to the value of the 

 fish landed than in England. This is because the 

 sea-fisheries of England are pre-eminently trawl 

 fisheries, carried out by large and powerful steam 

 trawlers, which, for the number of men employed 

 and for their own numbers, are much more 

 efficient than sailing boats. In England, too, the 

 fish landed are relatively more valuable than in 

 Scotland ; the flat fishes soles, plaice, turbot, etc. 

 which, with cod and haddock, form the great 



