30 BRITISH FISHERIES 



depletion of many inshore fishing grounds as a 

 result of excessive trawling. 



Two public inquiries, then, belong to this 

 period. In 1878 all the assertions made in 1863 

 were again repeated ; the trawl-net was said to 

 destroy fish spawn and immature fish to a waste- 

 ful extent ; the national fish - supply was said 

 to be decreasing, and restrictive legislation was 

 again called for. It is obvious that if a Govern- 

 ment department had been in existence, and had 

 kept itself conversant with the condition of the 

 fisheries, and had collected trustworthy statistics 

 of the fish landed, these assertions might have 

 been disposed of as they were made. However, 

 in 1878 the Home Secretary appointed another 

 Commission 1 to examine into the state of the 

 fisheries, and this body made a report in the 

 following year. It is unnecessary to go into its 

 proceedings and report at any length, as it covered 

 much the same ground as did its predecessor, 

 and it came to much the same conclusions. The 

 actual conditions of the fisheries had not, in fact, 

 changed much during the interval between 1866 

 and 1879. The Commissioners were evidently 

 strongly influenced by the opinions expressed in 

 1866, and they made few recommendations which 

 need concern us here. The question of inter- 

 national agreement as to matters of sea-fisheries 

 supervision was discussed by them, but while 

 1 Frank Buckland and (then) Mr Spencer Walpole. 



