SELECn' COMMITTEE ON THE SEA FISHERIES BILL. 



81 



10 March 1904] 



Mr. G. L. Alward. 



[Continued. 



Chairman — continued. 



1461. Would an 8-inch size limit be sufficient 

 to make it commercially unprofitable for them to 

 go ? — No, it would not distmctly. 



1462. They would still go. What limit do 

 you think would make it commercially unprofit- 

 able for them to go to those grounds ? — A 10- 

 inch limit. 



Lord Northbourne. 



1463. If you gave power to the Department 

 to frame byelaws, and they framed a byelaw for 

 Grimsby, where opinion you may say is almost 

 unanimious for the Bill, do not you think that 

 places where there was a strong opposition 

 would in a short time follow suit ? — 1 take it, 

 perhaps you might say, that that would be so, 

 judging from our experience of the byelaws of 

 our Sea Fisheries Committee. 



1464. If you think that would be so, do not 

 you think that would be preferable to having no 

 Bill at all ?— The question of leaving the fishing 

 community to settle their own differences is a 

 very dangerous one. I know we have had a 

 great deal of difficulty in times gone past on 

 many questions, and this trade prejudice which 

 has been put so strongly before us has a very 

 great deal of weight ; and I know the Depart- 

 ment will have great difficulty if it has the 

 whole of the discretion left in its hands without 

 any direct instructions. 



1465. What do jou mean by trade prejudice ? 

 — Well, for instance, the prejudice, as I under- 

 stand it to-day, is this sailing trawler against the 

 steam trawler. We are told that there never 

 would have been a question of putting any stop 

 to the catch of small fish if the steam trawlers 

 had not caught them in such immense numbers ; 

 that you would have left it alone with the sail- 

 ing vessels. That is the way it is put : " It is 

 you that do all the depredation " ; and " It is 

 you that wants legislation — ^not us " ; and " We 

 are not going to assist you to get legislation." 



1466. Then I suppose that is something more 

 than prejudice ; it is something that afi'ects the 

 pocket ? — I think that the question has been 

 put thus : If you find that in the North Sea the 

 fish is gradually getting less, it is getting less 

 for the sailing vessel as well as it is getting less 

 for the steam boat. And if his Lordship will 

 permit me, I think in those Notes of Evidence 

 when that question first came imder discussion 

 in 1886, 1 commenced to get out some statistics of 

 the sailing vessels just about the time that 

 steam trawlers were coming strongly to 

 the front. I have not troubled the 

 Committee with, year by year, the falling 

 off ; I have confined it only to those 

 plaice, not to the soles and the other 

 flat fish ; my figures really embrace all 

 kinds of fish, but for the purpose of showing 

 how the thing became so alarming in our minds, 

 I took out four distinct vessels of our own, 

 similar in size, fishing on similar grounds in the 

 North Sea, to see what had been the catch in 

 1875 as compared with 1892, taking year by 

 year, but for the purposes of this Committee 

 simply giving the first and last years. Now 

 there are the four ships. These are the figures 

 obtained to satisfy ourselves what was going 



(0.10.) 



Lord Norihbourne — continued. 



on. In 1 875 the first ship had caught 585 cwts. 

 of those plaice. During those years she fell down 

 to 164 cwts. of plaice for the 12 months. That 

 was the whole of her catch for 12 months. 

 The next vessel in the first period, 1875, had 

 caught 298 cwts. of plaice, and in the last period 

 onlj'' 126 cwts. of plaice. Now the next one that 

 followed had caught 506 cwts. in the first period, 

 and had fallen down to ] 94 cwts. The fourth, 

 and last, in 1 875 had caught 557 cwts., and she 

 had fallen down to 198 cwts. — the same vessels 

 fishing on the same grounds, showing that 

 there was a gradual falling off in this fish. Then 

 the other remarkable thing was this, that in 

 proportion as the fish fell off, so the prices went 

 up. In the first period they were satisfied, and 

 could make a livmg by selling that 585 cwts. of 

 plaice for 9s. 4cZ. a cwt. ; in the last period it 

 fetched 22s. 6d. a cwt. Taking the next stage, 

 a vessel which probably had a bigger kind of 

 fish, and perhaps had been fishing principally on 

 the locality where the fish may have 

 been a little bigger, hers fetched 13s. 6d. 

 a cwt., and in the last period 21s. a 

 cwt.; in the next case it was 12s. a cwt., 

 against 25s. per cwt. ; and in the last case 13s. 

 a cwt., against 22s. per cwt. That is what has 

 been going on and did go on, until we increased 

 our method of fishing so that one steam trawler 

 caught as much as five of those vessels ; they 

 cost five times the sum of money and caught 

 five times the quantity of fish. Thus we keep 

 up the supply of fish for the necessities of the 

 people. 



1467. Then your steam trawling industry is 

 an improving industry ? — Yes. 



1468. And the sailing vessel is rather a decay- 

 ing industry ? — The sailing vessel, so far as we 

 are concerned, has become extinct. We had in 

 1890, 829 of those sailing vessels; we have 

 none now. 



1469. Who are your srreat opponents, then ? — 

 The opponents are Lowestoft and Yarmouth and 

 Ramsgate and those places. 



1470. But they have sailing trawlers, have 

 they not ? — Yes, they have sailing trawlers. 



1471. But that is the quarter from which your 

 opposition mainly comes ? — Yes. 



1472. Do not you think that if you can show 

 a sufficiently overwhelming case, that opposition 

 would decrease ; you admit it has diminished ? 

 — I do not know how we could show an over- 

 whelming case. We simply show that we are 

 getting less fish and the public are getting less 

 than they want, and we are going forth into the 

 ocean to find it. 



1473. I mean by an overwhelming case, if 

 you can prove by scientific and other evidence 

 that the destruction of these fish diminishes the 

 supply ? — The House of Commons had that 

 before them, still they have thrown out the 

 Bill ; they have thrown out three Bills, and the 

 President of the Board of Trade has had those 

 figures and various figures of that description 

 before him. 



1474. Do you reside at Gfimsby ? — Yes. 



1475. Do you know the other parts of the 

 north coast ? — I think I know every part of 

 England where the trade is carried on. 



L 1476. Do 



