COUNCIL — APRIL 1912 - APPENDIX G — 116 — 



Firstly, the comparison of the plaice landed from the North Sea, from 

 centimeter to centimeter, according to number and weight. This is the first and 

 most important problem of the practical plaice question. It is necessary to know, 

 how many per cent of all the plaice are represented according to number 

 and weight in the catches landed from the North Sea, for instance, under 23, 25, 

 26, 29 cm and so on. What are the figures for this for the whole of the North Sea 

 or for the single sub-districts, for all countries together and for the individual 

 countries separately considered, for the catches of the whole year or of the single 

 month? Is it possible to obtain certain information as to these important points? 

 Is the previously collected investigation material (market measurements) extensive 

 enough, and sufficiently reliable? The answer is, that only the English and German 

 measurement material is suitable for the purpose of more exact determination. 

 The enormous mass of the English material required however to be in some 

 respects entirely revised by the General Editor for this purpose, which also took a 

 great deal of time, as it was a question of critically valuing many thousands of 

 figures. Happily the result of this long and wearying work is a satisfactory one. 

 It proves, for instance, that a comparison of the English and German catches 

 of plaice landed from steamers from one and the same sub-district of the North 

 Sea, for instance the area B 4 , agrees in the essential. This is a proof of the 

 reliability of the methods of investigation employed, and of the utility of the 

 results obtained thereby, and in this way one essential object of our research 

 has been attained; we can now calculate, with a fairly high degree of reliability, what 

 percentage of all plaice landed from the North Sea measure under 25 cm. and 

 what the loss would be to the fishermen on their catch in number, weight and 

 money value if the landing of such plaice under 25 cm. were prohibited. 



A second very important chapter of the Report deals with the question of 

 number and size of the plaice landed by the fishermen compared with the plaice 

 really captured by them in their nets. It is well known, that in the shallow parts 

 of the North Sea near the coast, for instance, Areas A,, A 3 and B 4 large numbers 

 of undersized plaice from about 12 to 18 cm. long are caught in the trawls, but 

 are thrown overboard again by the fishermen as worthless for the market, and 

 being for the most part dead, are thus destroyed to no purpose at all. It is of 

 great importance to know how great is the number of these plaice which are 

 thrown away. There is, however, up to the present very little material of any 

 utility to hand for exact calculations of this sort. The General Editor was here 

 obliged to rely almost entirely on the catches of the scientific investigation steamers, 

 to a great extent on his own catches, and to work these out independently. As 

 a result of this very lengthy investigation it appears that in summer, in the coastal 

 areas, from twice to six times as many plaice are thrown overboard from the 



