54 



MINUTES OF EVIDENCE TAKEN BEFORE THE 



4 March 1904. J 



Mr. Hamon le Steange. 



[Continued. 



Chairman — continued. 



tion by way of regulating the mesh. Have you 

 had any experience of regulating the mesh ? — 

 Our committee passed a bye-law for regulating 

 the mesh, which was proposed to be made applic- 

 able in one of the four sub-districts into which we 

 are divided, being the only one it applied to. It 

 was objected to when it came before the Board of 

 Trade by fishermen from other parts of the 

 district, and it was not allowed by the Board of 

 Trade. 



991. Do you know the grounds upon which it 

 was disallowed I — It was chiefly objected to by 

 the Lynn and Boston fishermen, who reside 

 miles away from the district and really had no 

 particular interests so far as we could see. One 

 of their objections, I think, which they attempted 

 to convince the holder of the local inquiry of, 

 was that a large mesh injured more fish than a 

 small one did, and they gravely asserted 

 ..that. 



992. Generally your Committee agree with 

 the ^N^ational Sea Fisheries Protection Associa- 

 tion, that legislation on this subject is eminently 

 desirable ? — They do. 



993. Have they considered this particular 

 ]3ill ? — Not as a committee. 



994. But so far as you know you have not 

 Iieard any objections to it ? — I have not had any 



■ opportunity of hearing objections to this parti- 

 cular Bill. 



995. Personally, do you approve of it ? — I 

 think it is very much wanted. 



996. As compared with the Bill of 1900, have 

 you any observations to make ? — I think the 

 elasticity of the present Bill is very much in its 

 favour. I can only speak re&lly of the districts 

 that I know, but even in the small limits of 

 those districts, as I said just now, we have been 

 obliged to put in force a certain amount of 

 elasticity ; and if that is the case for a district 

 consisting of 100 miles of coast, I think it must 

 be very much more required if a Bill is to be 

 passed for the whole territorial waters of the 

 iingdom. 



997. Are you a member of the County 

 Council ? — Yes. 



998. You know the operations, probably, of the 

 Board of Agriculture in connection with Animals' 

 Diseases, the Orders that are made under the 

 Board of Agriculture ? — Yes. 



999. Has that generally met with approval by 

 the local authority ? — I believe so. I have never 

 been a member of the Cattle Diseases 

 Committee. 



1000. But you have not heard any outcry 

 ■against any arbitrary action under the Orders 

 passed by the Board of Agriculture? — No, 

 certainly not. 



1001. Therefore you would be inclined to 

 think that fishermen might equally trust to 

 their sense of what was necessary for the fishing 

 trade ? — Certainly. 



Lord TweedTnouth. 



1002. How would this Bill affect your own 

 fishermen ? After all, your evidence has been 

 entirely about the deep sea trawlers, who are 

 really outside your jurisdiction altogether. 

 "Those figure^ you have been giving us are the 



andings of deep sea trawlers and not from 



Lord Tweedmouth — continued, 

 fishing that has been carried on within your 

 limits ? — Not all of them ; some of the par- 

 ticulars given referred to undersized fish 

 captured within the limits of our jurisdiction; 

 in fact, I may almost say the whole of the 

 territorial waters in our jurisdiction are the 

 nurseries of these fish. 



1003. I quite agree — the Wash especially — 

 I know it well. But what I want to know is 

 how does it affect the fishermen who at present 

 fish in those areas ? — I think it is possible that 

 they might at first think it would affect them 

 adversely, as they did when our committee was 

 at first established. We had the fishermen 

 against us at first. Now we have nearly all the 

 fishermen with us. 



1004. Have you any bye-laws with regard to 

 those in your limits, passed by your district 

 committee ? — With regard to the size of the 

 fish, do you mean ? 



1005. Yes?— Not flat fish, no; for shell fish 

 we have. 



1006. Or any regulation with regard to the 

 mesh of nets ? — We tried to get a bye-law with 

 regard to the mesh, but it was not allowed by 

 the Board of Trade. 



1007. Can you tell me at all what the average 

 size of the flat fish taken from your waters that 

 are landed and sold is at this moment ? — I do 

 not know how to strike the average. 



1008. There is a good deal of fishing in the 

 Wash ? — Yes. Chiefly trawling for shrimps. 



1009. What I want to arrive at is is : do the 

 fishermen who fish in this inshore water catch a 

 great quantity of small fiat fish ? — Yes ; you 

 cannot draw a trawl for half an hour there with- 

 out catching buckets full of fish, dabs as long as 

 your thumb nail 



1010. And by whom are those fish caught : is 

 it trawlers with a small trawl ? — Most of them 

 are caught by shrimpers. In the Wash itself 

 there is very little trawling for flat fish. They 

 do not go trawling for flat fish. They trawl 

 at other places where there are more soles 

 found, up the Lincolnshire coast. In the 

 Wash there is a great deal of shrimping, 

 which necessitates a very small mesh, and we 

 have had to make bye-laws obliging them to lift 

 their trawls out every half hour so as to let out 

 these immense quantities of small flat fish caught 

 in the poke, or bag, of the net. 



1011. Supposing a 10-inch limit were put on 

 plaice and soles, would it interfere a great deal 

 with your fishermen ? — Not at all. 



1012. They would accept it, would they ? — I do 

 not like to speak for fishermen as to what they 

 would accept ? 



1013. But then, as I understand, one of the 

 ideas of this Bill is to enable fishermen of that 

 class to be exempt from the provisions oftheBiU, 

 that the Bill is only to apply to the deep sea 

 fishing net ? — If it is only to apply to the deep 

 sea fishing net, it would not touch any local 

 fishery at all. 



1014. I know. I am saying, supposing it was 

 made to apply to your local fisheries, would your 

 fishermen accept it or would they consider it 

 taking away their means of livehhood ?^I think 

 the majority would accept it. I tmnk very 



many 



