December 15, 1904] 



NATURE 



153 



THE PRESENT CONDITION OF THE SEA- 

 FISHING INDUSTRY.' 

 THE methods employed in the capture and trans- 

 port of fish, the great combinations of capital, 

 the trade organisations, the disputes between the trade 

 and the railway companies, local upheavals, like those 

 of Newlyn and' Grimsby, which temporarily paralysed 

 the industry, the efforts of science to unveil the secrets 

 of the sea, and of Parliament first to encourage such 

 investigation and then to act upon its results; these 

 have in turn been briefly dealt with. Lastly, we 

 visited most of the important fishing ports." Such in 

 the author's words is an outline of the plan of this 

 book. , c 4^ 



Historically the work is of interest as bemg the first 

 popular and' general account of the sea-fishing in- 

 dustry which has appeared since Holdsworth's " Deep- 

 Sea Fishing," an admirable treatise of similar scope 

 published thirty years ago. A good idea of the rapid 

 progress of the industry in the interval may be gathered 

 from a comparison of the two. Curiously enough, 

 Holdsworth doubted the probability of 

 any extensive adoption of either steam 

 power or the otter trawl in relation to 

 commercial fishing. Contrary to this 

 forecast these very two factors, together 

 with ice and railway facilities, have 

 efi'ected nothing short of a revolution in 

 the industry. It is possible that the next 

 decade or so may also have surprises in 

 store as the result of trade enterprise on 

 the one hand and scientific investigation 

 on the other. 



.VIr. Aflalo wisely refrains from pro- 

 nouncing any strong opinions as to future 

 developments. 



.After a short sketch on " Life in the 

 Sea," in which the chief of the facts 

 known about the life-histories of the 

 edible fishes are mentioned, the author 

 proceeds to describe the various processes 

 involved in the capture and distribution 

 of fish. These subjects receive adequate 

 if not exhaustive treatment, and are madi- 

 as interesting as possible by Mr. .-Vflalo's 

 well-known popular style of writing. 

 Then follow two important chapters on 

 legislation and scientific investigation. 

 The final section consists of interesting 

 notes on the different kinds of fishing practised at each 

 important station along the coast, the condition of the 

 harbours (usually defective), railway facilities, local 

 modifications of the share system of wage-payment, 

 and the general prosperity, or otherwise, of the port in 

 question. The contrasts in some cases are very 

 striking, as, for example, between the mushroom-like 

 development of steam-trawling in the hands of syndi- 

 cates, as at Grimsby, and the moderate but steady 

 prosperity associated with private enterprise at a 

 typical smack-trawling port like Brixham. The 

 former may be safely described as the busiest and least 

 picturesque port in the kingdom, while Brixham, 

 which three-quarters of a century ago supplied the 

 pioneers of the North Sea fishery, and still breeds a 

 notably hardy and resourceful type of man, remains 

 attractive in the old-fashioned way. 



In dealing with such controversial matters as legis- 

 lation and scientific investigation, Mr. Aflalo repre- 

 sents the two sides of a question with some skill, and, 



1 " The Sea-fi.shing Iniiustry of England and Wales. A Popnlar Account 

 of the Sea Fisheries and Fishing Ports of Those Countries." By F. G. Aflalo, 

 F.R.G.S., F.Z.S. With a sea-fisheries map and numerous photographs by 

 the author and others. Pp. xx + 386. (London : Edward Stanford, 1904.) 

 Price 16s. net. 



absolutely committing himself to neither, has a good 

 word to 'say for both. Nevertheless, this attempt to 

 steer a sort of middle course among the different 

 opinions leads to no very definite results. The latest 

 Sea-Fisheries Bill he appears to regard as a measure 

 which might do some good, and cannot, in view of its 

 elastic and unbinding character, do much harm ; jt 

 has, in fact, its good points. International scientific 

 investigation is strongly advocated, " although 

 effectual investigation of the vast bed of the North Sea 

 is out of the question," and "however faulty the 

 Christiania programme may be when analysed on a 

 purely economic basis." 



The continued participation of Britain in the inter- 

 national investigations is recommended for the fol- 

 lowing reasons : — " As a piece of scientific work on an 

 elaborate scale, the North Sea scheme is not unworthy 

 of a century which opened with the discovery of 

 radium and the «-rays. As a measure of high politics 

 it is at least equal to the .\nglo-French Agreement 

 of which so much more has been heard." 



.Apart from purely diplomatic considerations, such 



NO. 1833, VOL. 71] 



as the above, the flat-fish problem, which is understood 

 to be receiving special attention at the hands of the 

 international experts, is surely very largely an inter- 

 national one, if only on account of the well-ascertained 

 fact that by far the most important nurseries of the 

 plaice are on the Continental side. One awaits with 

 interest the full details of these researches, especially 

 of certain experiments on the marking of plaice, as a 

 result of which it has been stated (in a short report 

 recently issued by the council of the Marine Biological' 

 Association) that the species performs seasonal migra- 

 tions of considerable extent and definite direction, and 

 further that 20 per cent, of the English marked plaice 

 have been recovered and returned by the fishermen 

 within a year. The latter result indicates an intensity 

 of fishing such as may conceivably afi'ect the supply of 

 this fish. Still more interesting economic possibilities 

 standing, perhaps, in relation to the last as the anti- 

 dote to the evil— are suggested by some reports recently 

 circulated in the newspapers. These speak of the 

 phenomenal growth of small plaice liberated on the 

 Dogger Bank, to which they had been transplanted 

 from certain crowded inshore "nurseries." Investi- 

 gations such as these bear directly on questions of 



