[ 57 ] 



Die Jovis, 10^ Martii 1904. 



PRESENT : 



Marquess of Abercobn (Duke ol 

 Abercorn). 



Earl of Onslow. 



Earl of Y ARBOEOUGH. 



Lord Meldrum (Marquess of Huntly). 



Lord TWKEDMOUIH. 

 Lord NORTHBODRNE. 



Lord Heneagk. 



The Right Hon. the Earl of ONSLOW, g.c.m.g., in the Chair. 



The Reverend WILLIAM SPOTSWOOD GREEN is caUed in : and Examined, as follows :- 



Chairman. 



1031. You are Chief Inspector of Fisheries 

 under the Department of Agriculture and Tech- 

 nical Instruction for Ireland ? — That is so. 



1032. May I ask you generally -whether the 

 Department has considered the Bill which is 

 now before the Committee ? — Yes, we have. 



1033. May I take it generally that Sir Horace 

 Plunkett is in tavour of the Bill being made to 

 apply to Ireland ? — Generally. 



1034. You have certain powers, have you not, 

 already ? — We have. Our powers are defined in 

 32 Acts of Parliament. 



1035. Do they extend beyond the 3-mile 

 limit ? — Yes, they have been held to do so. J 



1036. What powers have you outside the 

 3-mile limit ? — Under the Steam Trawling 

 Act, 1889, we have power to make byelaws pro- 

 hibiting trawling round the Irish Coast within 



he 3-mile limit, or within any defined area. 



1037. Does that apply to vessels sailing from 

 ports other than Irish? — It applies to all British 

 ships. I might say that the validity of that 

 power has been tested before the Court of King's 

 Bench in an appeal. 



1038. Are the areas defined by byelaw ? — The 

 areas are defined by byelaw. 



1039. You have no power to prohibit the 

 landing or the sale of fish of any particular size, 

 have you ? — I do not think we have. , 



] 040. What is the extent of the industry in 

 Ireland ? — There are nine steam trawlers fishing 

 from Dublin, and they land something over 

 3,000 tons of fish per annum ; and then there 

 are a number of sailing trawlers working all 

 round the coast. Galway and Dingle are the 

 two chief centres ; but put together, they do not 

 land more than about 500 tons of fish. 



1041. Have you taken any statistics as to the 

 size of the fish landed ? — We have not hitherto, 

 but our Scientific Department is at present 



(0.10.) 



Chairman — continued. 



attending to that, and Mr. Holt, our scientific 

 adviser, is here. ^ 



1042. Do the English trawlers that trawl in 

 the Irish waters land any fish in Ireland ? — As 

 a rule they do not. It is only merely acci- 

 dentally, I might say, when they land any fish 

 in Ireland ; as a rule they land the fish caught 

 off the Irish coast in Milford or Fleetwood. 



1043. What is the outside limit that Irish 

 trawlers would go to fish away from the Irish 

 coast ? — Some of the trawlers fish right away up 

 North, oS the Scotch coast, off the Scotch 

 islands ; but as a rule they do not go very far ; 

 they do not as a rule make weekly trips ; they 

 make half- weekly trips, because the fish market 

 in Dublin requires fish delivered ungutted, and 

 so they have to come back twice a week. 



1044. Therefore they none of them probably 

 would go to the Danish coast round Heligoland ? 

 — None of them go to the Danish coast. 



1045. And if the Orders of the Board of 

 Agriculture and Fisheries were framed solely 

 with a view of preventing vessels from going to 

 those Danish coasts, it would not be necessary 

 to apply them to Ireland ? — There is not the 

 slightest necessity. 



1046. On the other hand, would it be of some 

 assistance to you in enforcing your byelaws, if 

 this Act were passed? — It might be. At the 

 present moment we have dealt with the landing 

 of small fish in a different way. 



1047. The landing or the catching ? — The 

 landing ; that is to say, we have made byelaws 

 regulating the size of the mesh, with a view to 

 protecting small fish. That does not apply to, 

 trawling. 



1048. But is not that rather a byelaw regula- 

 ting the catching than the landing of the fish I 

 — The nets in the case of which we limit the. 

 size of the mesh are nets used from the shore. 



H so that 



