58 board's reasons for further closures. 



was impossible in the circumstances — especially of time and 

 ship. Further, when the high averages of the 'Garland's' 

 captures in 1887 in the Forth and St Andrews Bay are 

 critically examined it is found that these were largely due to 

 the fact that work was carried on solely during productive 

 months, viz., May, June, August, and September, no winter 

 month with its small captures reducing the average. The same 

 misapprehension occurred later, when contrasting the captures 

 of the ' Garland ' during the first five years with those of the 

 last five years of the period. The Fishery Board came to the 

 conclusion that, since the captures during the first period were 

 greater than in the second, deterioration had taken place in 

 the protected waters — a very different finding from that 

 (based on their earlier experiments) which they had formerly 

 given as a reason for extending the closed areas. The Board 

 now asserted "that there has been a diminution of the more 

 important flat fishes in the closed waters, instead of an increase 

 as was anticipated ; and that this may probably be traced to 

 the influence of beam-trawling in the open waters where the 

 fishes spawn." Consequently it was urged that the Board 

 should experiment by closing certain spawning-areas, such as 

 the Moray Firth, and it was done. 



No one will question the right of the Government to take 

 such a step in the interests of the fishing-population — on 

 philanthropic, social, or even on political grounds ; but if such a 

 step were taken on the basis of the scientific evidence furnished 

 by the Fishery Board, then it would appear that the premises 

 (and here all matters of fact are included) do not warrant the 

 conclusion. There is, for instance, a serious misapprehension 

 in contrasting an experimental period of five years in which a 

 preponderance of work falls on the summer or productive 

 months with an equal period in which the preponderance falls 

 on winter or comparatively unproductive months. Let one in- 

 stance suffice. In St Andrews Bay, in the first period, no hauls 

 of the trawl were made in the unproductive month of February, 

 whereas no less than 21 hauls occurred during this month in 

 the second period. The two cases are thus widely different. 



