THE FISHERY CONVENTIONS 631 



national regulations to preserve the peace between the fisher- 

 men of various countries frequenting the neighbouring seas, 

 and particularly the North Sea, soon became apparent. Com- 

 plaints of malicious interference with one another increased in 

 number. The Belgians and French were accused of cutting 

 and stealing the lines of Scottish fishermen, and the Dutch of 

 taking their derelict nets, and the Fishery Board for Scotland 

 accordingly pressed upon the Government, as early as 1876, the 

 advantage of negotiating a fishery convention with Holland. 1 

 A little later the free use by foreign trawlers of a destructive 

 implement known as " the devil," or " the Belgian devil," 

 aroused a strong feeling among British drift-net fishermen. 

 The instrument consisted of a shank and sharpened flukes, 

 which was hung overboard and was designed for the sole 

 purpose of cutting fishing-nets in the sea which might impede 

 the movement of the boat making use of it. It was a product 

 of the disputes and difficulties that occurred in carrying on 

 trawling and drift-net fishing in the same localities at the 

 same time. The British Government in January 1880 ap- 

 pointed Mr W. H. Higgin, Q.C., to make an inquiry on the 

 subject. His report 2 showed that the state of things with 

 regard to fishing operations in the North Sea by British, 

 Belgian, French, and Dutch boats was unsatisfactory. He 

 found that grievous injury and damage had been done to the 

 drift-nets and tackle of English fishermen in the North Sea 

 by trawlers belonging to France, Belgium, and Holland ; 3 that 

 there was no international law or convention between England 

 and France, England and Belgium, or England and Holland, 

 affecting the fisheries in the North Sea, the convention with 

 France in 1867 never having been ratified, while that of 1839 

 was, he said, confined to the English Channel and referred only 

 to French fishermen ; and he stated that some international law 

 of the kind was urgently required, as it would be impossible 

 otherwise to put a stop to the outrages described. In conse- 



1 Report by the Commissioners for the Herring Fishery, Scotland, 1869, p. 4 ; 

 Report by the Commissioners of the Fishery Board, Scotland, 1876, p. 7. 



- Report of W. H. Higgin, Esq., Q.C., on the Outrages committed by Foreign 

 upon English Fishermen in the North Sea. Part. Papers (C. 2878), 1881. 



3 After all, however, the damage from the monetary point of view was not 

 very great, amounting, according to the detailed information collected by Mr Higgin, 

 to 4372, 3s. over the years 1870-1880, or at the rate of about 400 per annum. 



