8 IMPROVED FISHERY HARBOUR ACCOMMODATION 



fishing off North Sunderland. The fishing ground is 

 capital, and subject to less than the usual fluctuations 

 which characterise the herring fishery, but it is not half 

 developed, owing to the want of adequate harbour 

 accommodation, there being no sufficient shelter between 

 North Sunderland and Berwick-on-Tweed, 23 miles to 

 the North, and between it and the mouth of the Tyne 

 to the south, a distance of 40 miles. North Sunder- 

 land is the chief seat of the kippered herring trade, but 

 in 1877 the harbour could accommodate only seventy-six 

 boats. In that year the fishery officer gave the following 

 evidence with regard to the harbour : ' The present catch 

 of herrings is from 15,000 to 18,000 crans, worth from 

 20,000 to 25,000, but by an expenditure of 10,000 on 

 the harbour, accommodation would be provided for from 

 300 to 400 boats, whose catch would be from 60,000 to 

 80,000 crans, worth from 80,000 to 100,000.' " 



" A harbour of sufficient space would admit of the white 

 fishery being prosecuted, as at Eyemouth, in large-decked 

 boats, namely, for cod and haddock. The estimated value 

 of the haddock fishery at Eyemouth is 30,000 annually. 

 Their best fishing ground is south-east of Berwick-on- 

 Tweed, and more easily reached from North Sunderland 

 than from Eyemouth. The Trustees of the Crew Estate, 

 with the consent of the Charity Commissioners, were 

 prepared to undertake the improvement of North Sun- 

 derland Harbour on receiving an opinion favourable to 

 the undertaking from Messrs. Buckland, Walpole, and 

 Young, which is given in the second supplementary 

 report to their principal Report in 1878." 



As the writer takes it for granted the jurors will have 

 charts at hand, he would desire to observe, that the Fame 

 Islands lie to the N.N.-eastward at varying distances 



