SEA FISHERIES 151 



it is surely a most remarkable fact, full of sig- 

 nificance to the practical man, that in the North 

 Sea marked plaice of marketable size are re- 

 captured at a rate of between 30 and 40 per 

 cent, a year. Such facts indicate the intensity 

 of the fishing in our area. It would seem that 

 each square yard of the fishing grounds is swept 

 by the trawl not once but again and again each 

 year. 



It is said that there is as good fish in the sea 

 as ever came out of it, but undoubtedly they 

 are most difficult to catch, and we have to go 

 further afield, to the White Sea and the coast 

 of Morocco to take them. We at present take 

 our fish where we find them, as the savage lives 

 upon the uncultivated fruits of the ground. 

 Fishermen are like these improvident cultivators 

 of virgin soil who make no return to the land 

 for what they take from it. Statistics of our 

 North Sea fisheries are far from reassuring as 

 regards this important source of the national 

 food supply. It has long been held by fishermen 

 and experts that these grounds were showing 

 signs of exhaustion, and the latest report to the 

 Board of Agriculture and Fisheries bears out 

 this view with some disquieting figures. The 



