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fish were dearer and scarcer ; and yet it was a remarkable 

 fact that the number of men increased. The number of 

 vessels, and their size also, was increasing from year to 

 year. There was very often an outcry for legislation, but 

 no one seemed able to indicate what particular direction 

 the legislation should take. The only practical suggestion 

 to-day seemed to be the suppression of the shrimp trawler, 

 and he had noticed in the different Conferences that one set 

 of fishermen generally wanted to suppress another. He 

 had no doubt that shrimp trawlers did some mischief, but 

 whether they could be stopped, whether the English shrimp 

 was a less worthy animal than the sole and turbot, and the 

 interest "of shrimp trawlers less than those of the great 

 mass of men who went sea fishing he would not attempt 

 to discuss. Professor Huxley alluded to his being a 

 practical trawler ; but it was only in an amateur way, as 

 a yachtsman, that he had done anything in that way, a 

 very different thing to earning one's living by trawling. 

 His suggestion that something might be said about the 

 size of the mesh, had arisen from his own experience. Not 

 having to get his bread by fishing, he was glad to have a 

 large mesh in order that he might allow the small fish, and 

 what sailors called muck, to escape, and he found very 

 great advantages from this large mesh. First of all, such 

 a trawl occupied less space, cost less to make, was more 

 easily dried, more easily drawn through the water, and 

 more easily hauled up, and on the whole secured a better 

 class of fish ; of course the smaller fish did go through, and 

 he was glad of it, because he knew that in future years 

 they would become larger ones. That was his experience, 

 which was only with what was called an otter trawl, only 

 available in shallow water, and never be spoken of in the 

 same breath with a beam trawl. It was a very easy and 

 very cleanly instrument, but only fit for amateurs. 



