FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES. 193 



be a ready means of identifying offenders ; and second, that 

 an easy and cheap remedy in a court of law should be pro- 

 vided. Such a provision can only be secured by an Inter- 

 national Convention among all the countries whose fisher- 

 men frequent the same seas. The claims of morality, and 

 of the safety and lives of the fishermen, and the interests 

 of the different States in an important industry, alike 

 demand prompt action to this end. 



There are other matters affecting not only the " police " Regulation 

 of the fisheries, but their " protection," that can only be territorial 

 properly regulated by an International Convention. So 

 long as fisheries are confineo! to the territorial seas, the laws 

 of the single State to which they belong can be enforced 

 against all comers. But outside the three-mile limit, which 

 is the recognised boundary of the authority of the State, 

 complications arise which only an International law can 

 remove. A law, for instance, might be made providing a 

 close season for certain kinds of sea-fish, the capture of 

 which takes place in the deep sea. But if such a law were Difficulty o 

 made by one State and not concurred in by all the others 

 interested, it would either be inoperative, even as far as the 

 subjects of the State sanctioning the law were concerned, 

 or it would be a great hardship upon them, in preventing 

 them from participating in an industry in which their 

 foreign rivals were free to engage unrestricted. If, again, 

 a law, fixing a minimum size for the sale of fish caught in 

 the deep sea, were made, it also would be of no practical 

 effect, for it would not prevent the subjects of the State 

 which made the law from catching such undersized fish and 

 selling them in foreign countries. 



Difficulties like these, indeed, are the first practical 

 objection to the demand which has lately been heard for 

 the protection of soles, for instance. Before such a law 



VOL. IX. E. 6. O 



