77 



man is likely to do, has diminished or is likely to diminish 

 the general stock of herrings in the sea." 



If further evidence be needed in support of a policy of 

 unrestricted fishing, it appears to me to be supplied by a 

 consideration of the insignificant proportion of herrings 

 captured by man as compared with that effected by 

 agencies over which man has no control. I need say little 

 on this point, as it was amply dealt with by Professor 

 Huxley in his opening address, but in support of his view 

 I may quote a short extract from the Report of Messrs. 

 Buckland, Walpole and Young in '78. They say : " The 

 Scotch gannets must consume 37 per cent, more herrings 

 than all the Scotch fishermen catch in their nets." 



The Commissioners add : " Whales, porpoises, seals, 

 coal fish, predaceous fish of every description are constantly 

 feeding on them (the herrings) from the moment of their 

 birth. The shoals of herrings in the ocean are always 

 accompanied by flocks of gulls and other sea birds, which 

 are continuously preying upon them, and it seems there- 

 fore no exaggeration to conclude that man does not 

 destroy one herring for every fifty destroyed by other 

 enemies." In quoting these opinions I am aware that I 

 am only repeating what has frequently been urged before 

 by those who have advocated unrestricted freedom of 

 fishing. My apology for repetition is that I am often being 

 told that " the sea is over-fished," and am frequently ap- 

 pealed to to use my influence in Parliament in support of 

 various restrictive measures for regulating our Sea Fisheries, 

 and the most effective reply to these statements and de- 

 mands appears to me to be the conclusions arrived at by 

 competent Commissioners, who have made exhaustive 

 inquiries into the subject. Only the other day I read a 

 most interesting book which I purchased in the Exhibition, 



