NATURE 325 
May 28, 1914] 
averse to making further radical change, or con- 
structive legislation, before attaining much more 
knowledge of the natural history of the marine 
economic animals than we yet possess. 
The weakest part of the Report is that dealing 
with the better education of the fishermen. It 
does not appear to us that the Committee has re- 
ceived sufficient evidence on this question, or that 
it made itself acquainted with the educational 
machinery already in existence, or even that it 
properly considered the admirable memorandum on 
this subject by the Board of Education, which is 
printed in the report. The Committee distin- 
for the inshore, and that which is necessary for 
the deep-sea fishermen, a distinction which it will 
be impossible to maintain in practice, since 
one class is continually being recruited from the 
other. The deep-sea man urgently requires in- 
struction in working methods of navigation—much 
more instruction than is at present recognised 
except by the Board of Trade, which tends con- 
tinually to raise the standard of its Fishery 
Examinations. The inshore man requires a know- 
ledge of his technique, net-making, fish-curing, 
and the management of small boats at sea, for 
instance, and how this is to be acquired except by 
actually practising it ander the instruction of older 
men we do not know. Both kinds of men require 
above all a much sounder elementary educatioh 
than they at present possess—without this the 
further instruction will surely fail in its object. 
The Committee recommends supplementary 
courses in the elements of navigation, the natural 
history of the sea (without biology !), practical 
ropework, sail-mending, signalling, carpentry and 
metalwork, all for boys attending sea-board 
primary schools. It recommends evening con- 
tinuation school courses in the same subjects, but 
with the addition of fish-curing for girls, and 
motor-mechanics for boys, these without restric- 
tion of age. It recommends occasional lectures 
in fishing centres in order that a knowledge of the 
natural history of fishes might be imparted, 
that the necessity for restrictions on methods of 
fishing might be explained, and that the resent- 
ment of fishermen to these restrictions on their 
operations might be obviated. 
It is difficult, and there is no space at our 
disposal, to consider these recommendations 
seriously. They do not matter since the whole 
organisation of the elementary and _ technical 
education of fishermen, inshore and offshore, is at 
present being actively developed by the Board of 
Education and by the local authorities, and will 
work itself out in a satisfactory manner all the 
sooner under the stimulus of a reorganisation of 
the fishery authorities. 
Apart from these defects (due obviously to the 
desire of the Committee to report without delay, 
and to the fact that its primary concern was with 
industrial development) the report is a statesman- 
like piece of work. We cannot help feeling that 
now or never is the time for the reorganisation 
ae 
guishes between the instruction that is necessary | 
alternative lines suggested in the evidence, and 
for the strengthening and adequate equipment of 
the Central Department. It is also sincerely to 
be hoped that investigation in the widest sense, 
scientific and statistical and industrial, will at all 
steps accompany this reorganisation in order that 
the failures of past fishery legislation may be 
avoided. J J. 
AUSTRALIAN MEETING OF THE BRITISH 
ASSOCIATION. 
August draws nearer the organisation of the 
first Australian meeting of the ‘British Asso- 
ciation is gradually approaching completion. The 
overseas party will number, roughly,. 350, and will 
for the most part leave England at the end of June 
or the beginning of July. The’ Blue Funnel liner 
Ascanius is to convey a considerable proportion of 
the advance party for Western Australia, while 
the main body of the visitors will leave later in 
the Aberdeen liner Euripides ,(on her maiden 
voyage), and the Orient mailboat Orvieto. The 
latter will take on board at Fremantle the advance 
party, and will arrive at Adelaide on the same day 
as the Euripides, viz., August 8. Other lines and 
other routes will bring Sapa detachments of 
members. 
A special arrangement has Reea completed with 
the Customs Department in Australia for the 
speedy handling of luggage at ports of entry. 
Clearance will “be effected very rapidly of all 
baggage certified to contain only personal effects. 
Members bringing with them anything subject to 
taxation will be required to make the usual state- 
ments and payments. 
The matter of overland conveyance in Australia 
of the overseas party is one of not inconsiderable 
difficulty. To the lively satisfaction.of, the Federal 
Council and the various committees controlling 
arrangements, it was decided at a conference of 
the Premiers of the different States, held at the 
beginning of April, that the hospitality of the 
several State railways should be offered to all 
visiting members without distinction. The desire 
is very strong in Australia that there shall be the 
least possible amount of distinction made between 
the various members of the visiting party. Where 
differential treatment does come in, it is simply 
because the numbers in the party put equal treat- 
ment beyond the ability, though not the wishes, of 
Australia. 
The Federal Handbook, a volume of 600 pages, 
is now published and about to be distributed to the 
visiting party by the High Commissioner for the 
Commonwealth prior to the party’s departure. 
The book is the work of leading authorities of the 
country, and neither trouble nor money has been 
spared to make it worthy of the occasion of ‘its 
issue. It is the intention of the Commonwealth 
Government to present a copy not only to each 
visiting member of the Association, but’ also to 
each member of its General Committee. 
State handbooks, supplementary to the larger 
of the fishery authorities on one or other of the | and more general work, are practically all com- 
NO. 2326, VOL. 93] 
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