1 8 THE BRITISH FISH TRADE. 



Unluckily the person who drew them does not seem to 

 have observed that the Merchant Shipping Act, 1862, con- 

 tained contrary orders. This act declared that all fishing- 

 boats, when attached to their nets and stationary, should 

 carry one white light, and that this light, and no other, 

 should be carried. These conflicting instructions involved 

 the drift fishermen in a singular dilemma. If they obeyed 

 the rules in the Merchant Shipping Act, they necessarily 

 disobeyed the Sea Fisheries Act. They could not, on the 

 other hand, observe the Sea Fisheries Act without contra- 

 vening the Merchant Shipping Act. After some years 

 Parliament came to their assistance, and directed them to 

 follow the orders of the Merchant Shipping Act. But this 

 decision led to a fresh inconvenience. It forced drift-nets 

 and trawlers to carry the same lights, and consequently 

 made it impossible for the trawlers to distinguish the drivers. 

 The inconvenience was so great that the Government under- 

 took to effect a remedy. It placed itself in communication 

 with other countries, and endeavoured to arrange a new 

 system of lighting to which the fishermen of all nations 

 should be bound to conform. After years of negotiation, a 

 new arrangement was made under which drift-net fishermen 

 were required to carry two red lights, one above the other ; 

 and trawlers were bound to carry a red and green light, one 

 above the other. But the new regulations proved almost a§ 

 unacceptable to the trade as the law which they had been 

 framed to supersede. Neither red nor green lights can be 

 seen at anything like the distance at which white lights of 

 equal power are visible ; and it is probably impossible to 

 devise a red light which it will be practicable for a fisherman 

 to use, and a fishing-boat to carry, and which will be visible 

 for three miles. This objection was raised so loudly that 

 the Government was forced to suspend the operation of 



