PROTECTION OF DEEP SEA FISHERIES. 437 



to the whole trade. The title of it is : " Running Agreement 

 and Aqcount of Voyages and Crew of a ship engaged in the 

 Sea Fishing Trade only, with Official Log attached." 



This agreement applies to trawlers, codders, drifters, and 

 all classes of fishing vessels. The first thing which attracts 

 attention is a notice which commences as follows : " The 

 Board of Trade have dispensed with the attendance before 

 the superintendent of a Mercantile Marine Office, of seamen 

 engaged and discharged under this agreement." Here is 

 another conspicuous blunder. The document from which 

 the above extract of notice is taken, was sanctioned by the 

 Board of Trade in March 1882, and clearly shows that a 

 fisherman may be discharged anywhere. In July of the 

 same year, only four months after, the same department 

 prepared the draft clauses relating to fishing vessels and 

 their crews, already discussed, and clause II incorporates 

 section 170 of the Merchant Shipping Act 1854, which 

 states that " all seamen discharged in the United Kingdom 

 shall be discharged and receive their wages in the presence 

 of a shipping master duly appointed under this Act," and 

 finishes by causing any one who does otherwise to incur a 

 penalty not exceeding ten pounds. Thus within a few 

 months of making an order, this department frames a Bill 

 incorporating a section of an Act of Parliament which dis- 

 tinctly negatives the order. This needs no comment, but is 

 only another instance of the way in which the trade has been 

 harassed of late years. After this notice follow particulars 

 of ship and employment, apprentices on board, and crew. 

 Then comes a scale of fines sanctioned by the Board of 

 Trade for certain offences. No. I is for not being on board 

 by the time fixed by the agreement, 5*. ; so that, " if a man 

 who has shipped to a vessel does not join, and causes the 

 remainder of the crew and owner to lose perhaps 100, or 



