FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES. 205 



attention of the Government, it is unnecessary to enter 

 more fully into it here. 



One illustration of the influence which the fisheries exert The fish trade 

 on legislation generally, and of the many directions in Factory Acts, 

 which they claim consideration at the hands of the State, 

 may perhaps be permitted here. In the laws regulating 

 the employment of women and children in factories, the 

 preparation of fish is specially exempted from the rules 

 limiting the age of children and young persons, and the 

 hours during which women may work. The absence of any 

 such exemption would be a serious hindrance to the fishing 

 industry. 



A more striking illustration of the position which the Lights for 

 sea-fisheries occupy as an industry of the first importance 

 could hardly be found than in the prolonged negotiations 

 which the regulation of the lights to be carried by fishing 

 vessels at night has given rise to in the recent revision of 

 the " Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea." As 

 fishing is mostly carried on at night, and as thousands of 

 vessels of all sizes up to 100 tons, or even more, are 

 "travelling the high seas to take fresh" fish sometimes 

 congregated in great numbers in a comparatively small 

 area, sometimes fishing separately it is essential that the 

 clearest and simplest regulations should exist as to their 

 distinguishing lights. The introduction, within the last 

 fifty or sixty years, of trawlers, and, within the last five or 

 six years, of steam trawlers, has brought with it a fresh 

 complication. A fishing-boat may be either simply sailing 

 to or from the fishing ground, or fishing her nets, or lying 

 at anchor ; a trawler may, of course, be any of these, but 

 she may also, while fishing, become accidentally fast to 

 rocks or wreckage, and so be practically anchored ; a steam 

 trawler, again, is not only a fishing-boat under one or other 



