352 NORTH SEA FISHERS AND FIGHTERS 



several of these vessels, enabling the German Admiralty 

 to keep in constant touch with that floating world on the 

 Dogger and in the neighbourhood, of which most 

 Englishmen are deplorably and densely ignorant. If 

 to-day there were a repetition of the Russian outrage, the 

 German Admiralty in all probability would know of the 

 affair immediately ; but we should have to wait until a 

 carrier, a trawler, or a hospital steamer brought the 

 startling tidings to shore. Admiral Rozhdestvensky's 

 blundering squadron fired on the vessels of the Game- 

 cock Fleet on the night between the 2ist and 22nd of 

 October 1904 ; but it was not until the evening of 

 the 23rd that the shot-riddled Mino reported the 

 occurrence at Hull, about forty hours having elapsed 

 since the cannonading. 



For some years the country has depended chiefly 

 upon its fishermen to recruit the Royal Naval Reserve. 

 Roughly speaking, 100,000 men and boys are con- 

 stantly employed in the fishing industries around our 

 coasts, and several thousands of these are in the Naval 

 Reserve. In 1908 these 100,000 toilers won from the 

 sea fish of the value of ,10,962,757, and most of the 

 fish represented by that great sum was caught by 

 North Sea men. Only a quarter of a century has 

 passed since the first paddle-boats, roughly equipped 

 with beam-trawl apparatus, began the steam-fishing 

 which revolutionised work on the North Sea banks. 

 Not 500 steam-trawlers were used in 1893; now there 

 are more than 2000 at work, the majority plying their 

 calling on the North Sea. But although the actual 

 means of winning fish from North Sea waters have been 

 completely changed, still the men and boys are the same 



