FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES. 287 



39 Viet. c. 1 8) for the promulgation by Order in Council of 

 a close-time for seals in the seas near Greenland ; and the 

 protected area was specified in a schedule to the Act. 

 This legislation is hypothetical ; granted a convention with 

 foreign powers, and granted the possibility of catching and 

 identifying offenders in so wide an expanse as the Arctic 

 Seas, its effect will be beneficial. At the end of last 

 century (see 11 Geo. III. c. 31), in some cases fishing 

 vessels competing for bounty-money were forbidden "to 

 wet their nets " before June 24th. This was the day fixed 

 for their arrival at Brassey Sound, in the Shetlands, or at 

 whatever place might have been named for their " rendez- 

 vous ; " it gave the opportunity for all boats to start fair, 

 and for small fish to reach maturity. How far a particular 

 boat had obeyed the injunction not to wet its nets could, 

 for the most part, only be calculated according to the date 

 at which it had left its port of equipment. In the same 

 way, the enforcement of a close-time for seals must depend 

 more on regulations affecting the date of departure for the 

 seal fishery of vessels from the Scotch ports, than in either 

 efficient police supervision in the Arctic Seas, or on 

 accusations brought against offenders by seal fishermen 

 who have observed the close-time. 



The necessity for Conventions in order to give an inter- 

 nationally effective and legal right to regulate sea fisheries 

 outside territorial waters, combined with the difficulty of 

 supervising probable offenders on so wide an expanse as 

 the sea, has always been, and always will be, an impediment 

 to endeavours to regulate sea fisheries, even when they are 

 situated comparatively near our own shores. Fortunately, 

 as has been before pointed out, such regulation is not, on 

 the whole, very necessary. The fish of the deep sea do 

 not appear to decrease, whilst fishermen have, to a great 



