— 53 — APPENDIX K: KYLE 



must be registered, but the old boats which have given up fishing are not always with- 

 drawn from the lists. 



The fourth and perhaps the main difficulty is, that the boats of the different coun- 

 tries, or of different classes in the same country, are not directly comparable with one 

 another. The tonnage system seems at first sight the simplest way of comparing the 

 various classes of boats, but on enquiring closer into the matter, we find that different 

 systems of assessing tonnage are employed in the different countries. In England, for 

 example, it is usually the "net" tonnage of the boats which is given, on the continent, 

 it is "brutto"- capacity or "netto"- capacity in cubic meters. If the gross tonnage were 

 given everywhere, it would then be a simple matter to convert English tons to cubic 

 meters, but net tonnage seems to vary even for the same class of boats, e. g. steam- 

 trawlers, in a manner as yet incomprehensible to the writer. Further, in net tonnage, the 

 large sailing trawlers and the steam trawlers are not far removed from one another, yet 

 the fishing capacity of the steam trawler must be several times greater than that of the 

 sailing trawler ; the fishing capacities of the sailing trawlers also, differ in the different 

 countries. 



Other difficulties might be mentioned, but these suffice to show, that any account of 

 the total annual amount of fishing in the North Sea is quite excluded, from this point 

 of view. 



The question arises however; of what utility for the solution of the problems of 

 overfishing and decrease of fish, is this information with regard to the boats? The 

 answer is, that in the case of a decrease of fish or of a stationary condition of a stock, 

 we wish to know whether the amount of fishing has decreased or otherwise. The im- 

 portance of such information has already been exemplified in the case of the Kattegat 

 fishery. If we are not aware by actual data, that the amount of fishing has not decreased, 

 we cannot well conclude from a decrease in the quantities landed, that the actual stock 

 in the sea has decreased. It seems quite contrary to general opinion to suggest for a 

 moment, that the amount of fishing in the North Sea has decreased. In general, there 

 can be no doubt that it has increased, up to 1900 at least, and for most of the im- 

 portant species, it has certainly not decreased. Nevertheless, it is worthy of con- 

 sideration, whether the decrease in the quantities of soles (see p. 31) landed annually, 

 may not partly be due to the amount of fishing it has undergone having decreased. 

 This point has been sufficiently discussed previously, it is only mentioned here, to 

 illustrate the necessity for having good statistics regarding the number and fishing 

 capacity of boats. 



Regarding the matter as a whole, it may be said, that the problem of overfishing 

 would not be solved even if we knew the total number of boats fishing in the North 

 Sea, and could reduce them all to the same unit. If 600 fishing units were trawling in 

 the North Sea in 1892 and 1200 in 1902, this would not indicate that the stock of 

 fish had increased, nor would the converse mean a decrease. If for example, we had 

 determined from the statistics, that the total quantities landed had remained constant, any 

 great change in the number of fishing units, such as that indicated, could only result 

 from some great change in the price obtained for fish on the markets. To determine 

 therefore, whether a well-fished area can support a larger or smaller number of fishing 

 units than it does at any given moment — and this is the practical solution of the 



