SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS. 289 



M. Georges Roche, the Inspector-in-Chief of the French 

 marine fisheries, on the other hand, accepts the conclusions^ 

 of the Blue-book in regard to the ten years' work of the 

 Fishery Board as if accurate and final, attributing, for instance, 

 the great increase of 1887 to the accumulation of fishes before 

 the trawlers had time to affect the offshore. He, however, 

 draws attention to the illusion of supposing that the closure 

 of the three-mile limit will ensure the protection of the 

 fisheries. 



But it may be said that the increase of the large fishing- 

 vessels^ both line and trawl, quite alters the situation; that 

 man's skill and the extent of the apparatus now in use must 

 seriously affect the numbers of the food-fishes; and that the 

 condition of to-day is wholly different from that of any pre- 

 vious period in the history of the fisheries. 



Similar calamitous forebodings, however, have sporadically, 

 or it may be endemically, appeared in the history of the British 

 fisheries from time immemorial, and have been followed by no 

 disastrous diminution, or the extinction of the most eagerly 

 pursued species. The continuance of the sea-fishes, under 

 every circumstance, has not been generally appreciated, and 

 has not fostered that faith in the marvellous ways of Nature 

 (Divine Providence) in the sea, or built up that confidence 

 for the future which might have been expected as intelli- 

 gence advanced. The mode of viewing the question has 

 indeed, in some instances, approached that of him who dreaded 

 that the oxygen would by-and-by be diminished in atmo- 

 spheric air by the apparently boundless increase of man and 

 animals. 



A calm survey of the situation, however, shows that the cry 

 concerning the annual diminution of our fish-supply has been 

 dispelled by the institution of statistics; that the alleged 

 destruction of spawn has no basis in fact ; that the destruction 



1 La Culture des Mers, p. 83, et seq. 



2 For instance, 90 were added to those at Grimsby and Hull alone in 1897, 

 making a total of 538 at these two ports. Moreover, there is now a tendency to 

 convert steam liners into trawlers. 



