COUNCIL - SEPTEMBER 1912 — 32 — 



their inception. He considered that had this course, which he ventured to main- 

 tain was the true scientific course, been adopted the whole of the trouble which 

 had since arisen would have been avoided. Other counsels, however, prevailed and 

 the work was started on a basis which the Council at their first Meeting at Copen- 

 hagen in 1902, a Meeting which he did not himself attend, recognised was insuffi- 

 cient to carry out the said programmes in their totality. The Council, therefore, 

 at that Meeting found themselves compelled to limit their investigations to two 

 special problems which specially concerned the participating countries. He proceeded 

 to quote the following extract from a speech of the then British Prime Minister, 

 reported in the Times of May 13th 1899 and made in reply to two deputations 

 from English and Scottish fishermen respectively. The late Lord Salisbury said: — 

 "It appears to me that it is not at present the duty of His Majesty's Government 



to take sides either with the line fishermen or with the trawlers There is 



a much broader and more salutary principle that underlies any action that we 

 may be called upon to take, and that is the duty to the best of our ability of 

 preventing the natural supply of the wealth of the Sea from being diminished or 

 depleted by any illegitimate enterprise. That is the great evil, and there is nothing 

 unusual or new in looking to a Government to do its utmost for an object of this 

 kind .... It is I think with that view that this conference at Stockholm has assembled." 

 Mr. Archer maintained, that the views expressed in that speech taken in conjunction 

 with the pubhshed official correspondence and instructions issued to the British 

 Delegates attending the subsequent Meetings of the Council established beyond a 

 doubt that the solution of the questions of overfishing and protection of small 

 fish were the paramount objects with which the British Government consented to 

 participate in these investigations, and these questions were included in one of 

 the special problems which the Council decided to take up. With the progress of 

 the work, it transpired that even for this very limited programme the provision 

 which had been made was insufficient and they were compelled to ask that 

 further funds should be provided. He maintained, therefore, that there was no 

 divergence of opinion on the Council as to the desirability of carrying out the 

 Stockholm and Christiania [programmes, which he understood included all that 

 the so-called divergent schools of thought desired, but that the Council had been 

 forced to abandon that larger scheme of work owing to the insufficiency of funds 

 required to provide the necessary equipment and in order to meet the views of 

 the participating Governments by taking up the most pressing problems in the 



