142 



THE NATIONAL GEOGRx\PHIC MAGAZINE 



The lesson of the present war to the 

 inhabitants of Neptune's kingdom is that 

 it is an ill wind which blows nobody 

 good. But yesterday thousands of steam 

 trawlers pursued their way up and down 

 the fishing grounds of the North Sea, 

 gathering in with their vast nets untold 

 millions of fish. Other thousands of 

 drifters dropped down over the fishing 

 banks and vied with the trawlers in the 

 magnitude of their catch. Other thou- 

 sands, and even tens of thousands, of 

 boats equipped with a myriad of baited 

 hooks aided in collecting the tremendous 

 tax levied by the human appetite upon 

 the sea. 



Today a hundred thousand English- 

 men who manned the steam trawl, the 

 drifter, and the sailing boat ; tens of 

 thousands of Germans who vied with 

 them in their work ; Belgians, the French, 

 the Dutch, the Danes, and the Scandina- 

 vians, who also helped exploit the North 

 Sea fisheries — all of these are largely out 

 of jobs. Fishing boats now sweep the 

 sea for mines instead of seining it for fish. 



THE SERIOUSNESS OE THE SHORTAGE 



We in America, where fish forms such 

 a minor part of our daily diet, and where 

 so many of the fish that we eat are grown 

 in our rivers and bays, under a great 

 American-originated system of fish cul- 

 ture, find it hard to realize how serious 

 in their proportions and how far-reach- 

 ing in their consequences are the results 

 of the practical closing down of the fish- 

 eries of the North Sea. 



Europe has depended very much on 

 these fisheries for fish supplies. More 

 than half of all the fish produced on all 

 the fishing grounds operated by Euro- 

 peans are caught within the limited terri- 

 tory that constitutes the North Sea fi.shing 

 grounds. How much they are depended 

 upon is shown by the fact that Great 

 Britain annually absorbs 500,000 tons of 

 North Sea fish ; that means 22 pounds 

 per capita. And while this is small in 

 proportion to her per capita meat con- 

 sumption of 119 pounds, yet it is that 

 margin which represents the difference 

 between a bounteous plenty and positive 

 hunger unless other foods can be secured 

 to take its place. 



The same condition applies to Ger- 



man3\ Not only has that country hereto- 

 fore used all of its own catch, but has 

 annually imported more than a million 

 and a quarter barrels from other coun- 

 tries around the North Sea. The United 

 Kingdom and Germany are the two great- 

 est meat-eating nations of the six leading 

 ones now at war, Germany's per capita 

 consumption being 113 pounds. An in- 

 vestigation reveals the fact that as meat 

 becomes' less and less important in a na- 

 tion's dietary, fish becomes more and more 

 important. France has a per capita con- 

 sumption of 80 pounds of meat, Belgium 

 70, Austria-Hungary 64, and Russia 50. 



FEW FISH IN THE BALTIC 



Germany cannot look to the Baltic for 

 any large supply of fish to replace her 

 former supplies from the North Sea, for 

 the waters of that sea are poor produc- 

 ing grounds. The total annual yield there 

 is only about a tenth as great as that of 

 the North Sea, and Germany's share of 

 this is, in normal times, very small. 



Great Britain's North Sea fisheries 

 represent nearly two-thirds of the total 

 catch there, and are more than eight 

 times as large as those of Germany. 



In the North Sea three-fifths of the 

 total catch are herring; haddock takes 

 second place, constituting 1 1 per cent of 

 the total ; cod comes third, with 8.5 per 

 cent, and the plaice fourth, with 4.3 per 

 cent of the total catch. In the matter of 

 values the ratio is somewhat different 

 from that of weights. Constituting 62.7 

 per cent of the weight of the season's 

 catch, the herring accounts for only 45.4 

 per cent of its value. 



The vast proportion of the fish con- 

 sumed in Europe is salt fish. The fresh 

 fish go to the tables of the rich, while the 

 herring and other salted varieties are con- 

 sumed principally by the masses. The 

 result is that when the pinch in the fish 

 supply began to come it visited the homes 

 of the well-to-do first. All of the coun- 

 tries at war probably have enough salt 

 fish in their warehouses to tide over a 

 considerable period, but if the war keeps 

 up this reserve must disappear. 



Not only do the nations at war feel the 

 pinch of the fish shortage caused by the 

 war, but neutral nations as well. Hol- 

 land feels it sorely from a production 



