PROTECTION OF DEEP SEA FISHERIES. 431 



maker. These both work in leather, but their industries 

 are vastly different and quite distinct. 



L. This and the following clauses to O. inclusive, apply 

 not only to apprentices so-called, but to all boys under 

 eighteen years of age engaged in fishing, whether ap- 

 prenticed or not, although the term of their engagment 

 may be for one day only. If the provisions of this and 

 the three following clauses be enacted, it will become 

 impracticable to ship boys at all when under the prescribed 

 age, and this would be a very serious obstacle to the 

 development of the fisheries, especially at some drift 

 ports, where frequently half the crew are lads under 

 eighteen years of age. Now clause 132 of the Merchant 

 Shipping Act, 1854, provides for the apprenticing of 

 boys at the age of twelve years to the sea service, which 

 proves that eighteen years of age is by no means too early 

 a period for a lad to go to sea, and were the practical 

 result of these clauses to prevent boys from going to sea 

 until they had obtained eighteen years, they would mean- 

 while fall into some other occupation and lose their taste 

 for the calling of a fisherman. This would be most pre- 

 judicial not only to owners and fishermen, but to the 

 interests of the country at large, as it is no doubt a fact 

 that boys who first go to sea as fishers eventually supply 

 a great portion of the seamen with which our Royal and 

 Merchant Navy is manned. 



Even if indentures of apprenticeship be made subject to 

 the stringent regulations comprised in Clauses L. to O., 

 there is no reason why a mere agreement with a boy under 

 eighteen years of age should be so regulated. Apprentices 

 to the drift-fishing are unknown, and at some large ports 

 apprentices to the trawling are quite the exception, and the 

 boys ship for the voyage only. Therefore great injustice 



