EXPORTS OF HERRING 171 



future or to reinstate the North Sea as the 

 foremost fishing ground of Europe is at present 

 impossible, since the effect of the war on the 

 fisheries cannot be foreseen. Mines, submarines, 

 noise, disturbance, incessant patrolling of the 

 waters — all these make the question obscure 

 and doubtful, and it will be some years after 

 peace has been declared before the future policy 

 of the country with regard to her fisheries can 

 take shape. There is also the possibility that 

 the three-mile limit may disappear, to be 

 replaced by a ten or even a twenty-mile limit. 



Certain reforms are obviously urgent, but 

 they will be clearer if we consider not only the 

 particulars already given but the statistics 

 of the year 1913 relating to the export trade 

 in herrings as it was, before the present war 

 had upset all calculations and all precedents. 



In 1913, then, we actually exported from the 

 United Kingdom cured and salted herring to 

 the value of nearly £5,500,000 sterling, repre- 

 senting about 3,000,000,000 fish, of which Russia 

 and Germany together took nearly 80 per cent., 

 while in the same year we landed in the United 

 Kingdom 3,500,000,000 fresh herring, worth 

 about £4,500,000 sterling. Germany and Russia 

 were our best export markets, these countries 

 taking pickled, but very few smoked herrings, 

 while Italy and Greece took them smoked and 

 salted, but not pickled; the British Colonies 

 and Dependencies took the fish in various forms, 

 including a large number tinned. Germany 



