NATURE 



505 



THURSDAY, APRIL i, 18S6 



A FISHERY BOARD FOR ENGLAND 

 T N the House of Commons, on March 6, Sir Edward 

 Birkbeck pressed upon the consideration of the 

 Government the advisability of taking immediate steps to 

 give effect to the recommendations of the Trawhng Com- 

 mission. Few men could have handled the question with 

 so much knowledge and force. Sir E. Birkbeck pointed 

 out that there is urgent need for a central department for 

 the administration of business connected with sea- 

 fisheries, and in supporting his appeal exhibited a 

 detailed knowledge of the clumsy state of the existing 

 arrangements and a wide acquaintance with the statistics 

 and conditions of fishing industries. He pointed out that 

 Scotland and Ireland possessed each a Fishery Board 

 with considerable powers, complete organisation, and 

 liberally supplied with public money. He recommended 

 that a Fishery Board for England should be established 

 which should unite the powers and functions now distri- 

 buted among the Government Offices. The duties of the 

 Board suggested were that it should collect detailed sta- 

 tistics as to the amount of fish taken, its value, and the 

 number of vessels and hands employed ; that it should be 

 responsible for the registration of fishing-vessels ; and 

 should be able to recommend legislation when necessary 

 or advisable. The author of the motion further recom- 

 mended that the Board should divide the English coast 

 into Fishery Districts, each with its Fishery Officer, and 

 that the supreme control of the salmon and other inland 

 fisheries should also be vested in the new authority. Mr. 

 Mundella replied that the Government accepted the 

 principle of the inotion, and were about to carry it out by 

 constituting a Committee of the Board of Trade which 

 should be responsible for matters connected with the 

 fisheries, but reminded the House that a Bill would have 

 to be passed to transfer the powers at present vested in 

 the Home Office to the new sub-department. 



The present Government are thus pledged to the for- 

 mation of what is practically an English Fishery Board. 

 If a Fishery Board is useful and valuable it is a surprising 

 fact that Ireland and Scotland have long enjoyed an 

 institution which is wanting in England. It would seem 

 that so much fear e.xists lest the smaller constituents of 

 the United Kingdom should be neglected or unjustly 

 treated that England is in danger of surtering from com- 

 plete maternal self-sacrifice. But now that the deficiency 

 is to be remedied it is necessary to consider carefully 

 how the new institution can best be constructed. It is 

 easier to provide good arrangements in the course of 

 construction than to remedy mistakes afterwards. Sir 

 Edward Birkbeck pointed out what functions he thought 

 the new department should undertake. Mr. Mundella 

 refrained from entering into details, only mentioning the 

 subject of floating grog-shops as one requiring immediate 

 attention. Sir E. Birkbeck's recommendations are appa- 

 rently founded on his knowledge of the constitution of 

 the Irish and Scottish Boards, but he did not enter upon 

 the question of scientific work. He thought that the 

 Board should include a practical element. But the ques- 

 tion of what " practical " means depends largely on the 

 Vol. XXXIII. — No. 857 



particular practice to be carried on. The ordinary inter- 

 pretation of the word would mean that some member of 

 the Board or Committee should be a man who had been 

 personally engaged in the fishing industry. We have 

 miners in the House of Commons, and doubtless an in- 

 telligent fisherman would be useful on a Fishery Board. 

 But the Trawling Commission recommended that money 

 should be granted to the Scottish Board for the purpose 

 of conducting scientific investigations, and that a central 

 authorityfortheUnited Kingdom should, when created,also 

 carry on scientific work and collect fishery statistics. For 

 scientific work the practical element means men of science 

 to do the work. The principle is now recognised by several 

 examples. A Professor of Zoology was appointed to the 

 Trawling Commission, and another by the influence of 

 the Scottish Meteorological Society, to the Scottish 

 Fishery Board. A training in science does not always 

 include a training in business details. But in a Fishery 

 Board, and especially in its scientific work, the purely 

 administrative and business work are of subordin- 

 ate importance compared with the necessity that the 

 inquiries and actions of the department should be 

 carried on by men who have special knowledge of ani- 

 mals, and particularly of marine life. This principle is 

 recognised in other countries. The Fishery Commissioner 

 of the United States is a distinguished man of science, 

 and his colleagues and many of his subordinates are 

 trained scientific men. The Commission for the Investi- 

 gation of the German Seas is composed of distinguished 

 men who are students and teachers of biology or physics. 

 In Norway and Holland the same thing occurs. It is to 

 be hoped that we in England shall not commit the error 

 of entrusting the affairs of a Fishery Department en- 

 tirely to men whose only training has been legal or com- 

 mercial. The mere collection of fishery statistics can 

 only be efficiently carried out, or at least controlled and 

 directed, by men of some scientific training. Fishermen 

 themselves, as was abundantly shown during the inquiries 

 of the Trawling Commission, are too uneducated to esti- 

 mate truly the meaning of the things they see. For this 

 reason their views and statements must be subject to the 

 criticism of exact science. As the Trawling Commission 

 conckided, it is impossible to discover the causes or mea- 

 sure the fluctuations of the fisheries in the absence of 

 a proper system of fishery statistics and scientific ob- 

 servations. The new laboratory now being founded by 

 the Marine Biological Association will form an important 

 central station for the accurate investigation of fishery 

 questions, and, with the co-operation of smaller and 

 sometimes temporary laboratories at other parts of the 

 coast, some real knowledge of the conditions of our 

 fisheries may be obtained. 



As an instance of the care and knowledge which must 

 be devoted to inquiries concerning fishery matters, we 

 may point out that in the Second Annual Report of the 

 Scottish Fishery Board, a fish was described as of a 

 species new to the northern region of the German Ocean, 

 which really belonged to a species long known to be 

 common in the district where it was taken. We be- 

 lieve that only two herring-spawning beds off the coast 

 of Britain are at all accurately known. It is manifestly 

 advisable that our knowledge of the herring, perhaps the 

 most important of our food-fishes, should include an 



