Jbesident's addkess. 305 



the water. The risks to which ova and young fishes are exposed 

 in the struggle for existence are immense — chiefly no doubt 

 arising from the fact that they are preyed upon by all kinds of 

 creatures, great and small ; and it may be taken as a zoological 

 law that the fecundity of creatures so circumstanced is enormous. 

 Fishes form no exception to the rule, and we find that a single 

 turbot may produce in a single season nine or ten millions of 

 eggs ; a cod, sis or seven millions ; a haddock, one million ; and 

 with these facts in his mind the eminent Belgian naturalist, 

 Yan Beneden, says "the fecundity of fishes is so great, the 

 quantity of immature fish destroyed" — by man's agency he 

 means — "is so small in comparison with the immensity of the 

 sea, that it does not matter where or when the fishing is carried 

 on or with what engines, man is unable to disturb the equili- 

 brium which the Creator has established between destruction and 

 reproduction, — between life and death." But with all respect to 

 so great an authority it must be asserted that man is constantly 

 interfering, to his own great detriment, with the equilibria of 

 nature, and it is more thau probable that he is doing so in this 

 very case. Consider for a moment what is the natural destiny 

 of the twenty million eggs produced by the female ling. In the 

 order of nature, supposing the equilibrium to be maintained not 

 more than about two of these would need to live in order to fill 

 the place of the parents — the remaining 19,999,998 never attain- 

 ing sexual maturity. Therefore, seeing that the ravages of man 

 are exercised only upon the mature fish — upon only two out of 

 twenty millions, — the remainder having been already swept out 

 of existence, — it is by no means difficult to imagine a great dis- 

 turbance of the natural equilibrium. 



Looking at the facts of the case, the general aspect of which 

 I have endeavoured to lay before you, it is evident that a national 

 control ought to be exercised over fisheries. And with this view, 

 under the Fisheries Acts of 1888 and 1891 ten Sea Fisheries dis- 

 tricts have been formed, comprising a large part of the coasts of 

 England and Wales. But on the East and South Coasts con- 

 siderable areas have not yet been formed into districts. The 



