D.— ZOOLOGY 99 



systematic oceanographic work in the eastern Atlantic will be more and 

 more acutely felt as time goes on, and I feel convinced that it is the only 

 way in which we can ever reach an understanding of the reasons for the 

 large fluctuations in our fisheries. 



There is much work to be done nearer at hand in improving and 

 co-ordinating the collection and publication of data from our own coastal 

 waters — a matter to which the International Council for the Exploration 

 of the Sea is now giving careful attention. It appears, however, that the 

 research ships employed by the maritime countries of Europe are for the 

 most part fully occupied with their own domestic fishery problems and 

 can only occasionally find opportunity for oceanographic survey. Thus, 

 unfortunately, it is not a question of devising a programme which will give 

 the regular data that are needed, but of attempting to obtain the necessary 

 information with resources which will almost inevitably prove to be 

 inadequate. Yet, with the knowledge we now possess and the new 

 methods which have been evolved, it is certain that very valuable results 

 could be achieved by a comprehensive study of the fluctuations in the 

 hydrography and plankton, and the work that is now beginning in the 

 western Atlantic will lose much of its value if we are unable to obtain 

 comparable data in our own waters. 



Before concluding this address I feel I should call attention to the 

 urgent need throughout a very large part of the British Empire for greater 

 activity in the scientific administration of the fisheries, for to me at least 

 it is apparent that the lessons which long years of experience have taught 

 us in this country are not generally understood elsewhere. 



The plain fact is that in the Empire as a whole we are deplorably 

 deficient in fisheries administration. To this broad statement there are 

 of course some exceptions. By reason of its situation in Europe the Irish 

 Free State is obviously one of them, and it has taken its full share in the 

 progress that has been made during the present century. Another 

 exception is Canada, where a vigorous fisheries service, with a competent 

 scientific staff, has been at work for many years. Newfoundland, a 

 country whose fisheries are of predominant importance, not long since 

 suffered a shattering blow in the loss of the whole of its laboratory build- 

 ings by fire, but it will recover from this disaster and we may hope that 

 the work which had such a brilliantly successful beginning will shortly be 

 resumed. Australia has now made a fresh start after the tragic loss of the 

 Endeavour and has at last taken the wise step of founding a Common- 

 wealth fishery department. These are the high lights, and there are one 

 or two colonies, such as the Straits Settlements and Ceylon, which give 

 relief to what is otherwise a very sombre picture. In South Africa with 

 its astonishingly rich fishing grounds and vast length of coast-line the 

 fishery staff is utterly inadequate, and in India, where fisheries research has 

 immense possibilities, there is apparently little hope that proper action 

 will ever be taken. In India fisheries are what is known as a trans- 

 ferred subject : that is to say they have been handed over by the central 

 Government to the provincial administrations. The result is that some 

 provinces may have a scientific staff of one, others have none at all, while 

 Madras, which is much the most enterprising and publishes a Fisheries 

 Bulletin, has three. In such conditions fishery work on any adequate 



