PROTECTION OF DEEP SEA FISHERIES. 427 



Christmas. Were each of these settlements to take place 

 before the shipping master, it would take two or three 

 months to discharge the crews, who are mainly composed 

 in this, as in other cases of men residing within a radius of 

 twenty miles of the port, and who at the end of their voyage 

 are anxious to receive their money and to return home. 

 This proposal is therefore perfectly impracticable, not only 

 at this, but at all ports, as the rule is similar in a greater or 

 lesser degree. Besides all this another difficulty would arise 

 in the following manner. The wages of trawl and line fisher- 

 men, when they are not wholly or partially by the share, 

 are either wholly or partially drawn weekly by the person 

 nominated by the men ; for this purpose a card is given 

 in most cases to the fisherman when he ships, and on this 

 card being presented weekly to the owner the money paid 

 is entered on it. Where this money, in the case of a man 

 on weekly wages only, is fully drawn every week, a fisherman 

 at the end of his voyage has frequently nothing to receive, 

 unless it be a portion of a week. In the case of drifters 

 and vessels by the share, when a man has money due to 

 him he generally draws some for the maintenance of 

 his family or for his own use. If this proposed clause 

 were to become law, the regular payment of wages to the 

 families of fishermen would be illegal, and such families 

 would, in the absence of the breadwinner, be left to starve 

 or go to the workhouse. 



Section 269 appears to be the only one of all the clauses 

 which is acceptable to the fishing community without con- 

 siderable alteration. This provides that enquiries should 

 be made into the cause of death on board foreign-going 

 ships by the shipping master on the arrival of the ship in 

 port, and would very properly apply to fishing vessels in 

 cases of death on board or drowning. 



