SEEKCT COMMTTTEE^'ON THE' SEA FISHERmS- BILL. 



117 



17'WttTC/rl904.] 



Mr/ GAESTi-NG. 



[GontiMied. 



Chairman — contimied. 

 Svliat is the relative amount of' "fishing power 

 -exerted by England on the one haiid and by 

 ■Germany on the other on those Horn Reef 

 Grounds. It is somewhat difficult to get it 

 exactly, but 1 have consulted the Danish Official 

 Reports for a term of years past, and have' taken 

 from them the total number of steam trawlers 

 ■observed from the Horn Reef Lightships from 

 month to month in each of the last seven years 

 ■ — that is, the total number of steam trawlers 

 observed from those lightships. Then the 

 Danish authorities are also able in many cases to 

 distinguish the nationality of these steam 

 trawlers ; they cannot distinguish from the light- 

 ship the nationality of all the steamers they 

 observe, but they do distinguish the nationality 

 of a certain number. I have tabulated these out 

 on sheets here in a form that I will lay before 

 the Committee. {Vide Appendix, .) The 

 results are briefly as follows. If we take the 

 year rouud on the Horn Reef Grounds, the watch 

 on the lightship have observed the i allowing 

 iiverage number of steam trawlers fishing jr on 

 voyage past their lightship. In January the 

 number is 41. 



2165. 41 of what nationality ? — That is alto- 

 gether, first of all. 



2166. Are you going to give us the nationali- 

 " ties afterwards ? — I will give the nationalities 

 afterwards. In January, 41 ; in February, 31 ; in 

 March, 63 ; and then in April there comes a great 

 increase — in April, 246 ; m May, 271 ; in June, 

 337 ; in July it begins to fall off, 190 ; August, 

 140 ; September, 108 ; October, 171 ; November, 

 172 ; and December, 119. 



2167. Do not those figures closely approxi- 

 mate to the months in which the greatest 

 number of young undersized flat fish are to be 

 found there ? — Yes they afford statistical evi- 

 dence as to the great increase in the fishing on 

 the Horn Reef grounds during the spring 

 months. 



2168. Just at the time when there are most 

 undersized flat fish ? — Yes. Then passing from 

 that, I have tabulated the observations of the 

 men on this lightship as to the nationality of 

 the different steam trawlers, and first of all I give 

 the figures for the English steam trawlers. This is 

 the monthly average for seven years : In January 

 they observed on an average 2 English steam traw- 

 lers ; in February, 1 ; in March, 6 ; in April, 34 ; 

 in May, 44 ; in June, 51 ; in July, 24 ; and then 

 there comes a falling off", in August, 8 ; Septem- 

 ber, 4; October, 6; November, 8; and December, 

 2. The corresponding figures for the German 

 •steam trawlers are as follows : January, 8 ; Febru- 

 ary, 8 ; March, 16 ; April, 79 ; May, 64 ; June, 101; 

 July, 62 ; A,ugust, 56 ; September, 40 ; October, 

 37 ; November, 75 ; and December, 21. The 

 result is, you observe, that so far as these, obser- 

 vations are concerned, the number of German 

 steam trawlers greatly preponderates in each 

 month over the number of English steam 

 trawlers observed from that lightship. On the 

 other hand, it has to be borne in mind that the 

 lightship lies exactly on the line of route 

 between the German ports and the trawling 

 grounds in th^ , . Skagerrak ; consequently a 

 great many of the German vessels observed 

 were not fishing oil the grOimds, they wete 



Chairman — continued, 

 merely voyaging up and down ; whereas j^ou 

 may take it for granted that almost all the 

 English vessels Avere actually fishmg, not all, 

 but the great majority. But in order to try and 

 determine more exactly what was the relative 

 number of German and English boats fishing 

 on the grounds, the only sources of information 

 that I am aware of are those contained in the 

 Danish Reports, which report the number of 

 seizures of foreign vessels for fishing in ter- 

 ritorial waters, and also which report the 

 number of foreign vessels, that is to say, other 

 than Danish vessels, which were arrested for 

 doing damage to Danish boats in collisions, and 

 so on. I have tabulated these out, and there 

 are a few copies of these that I can hand in at 

 once to your Lordship's Committee (handing in 

 the same). The Danish Reports give for a term 

 of years a numerical list of the number of 

 British and German steam trawlers, as 

 well as of German sailing trawlers which 

 were arrested for fishing in territorial limits, 

 and they give similar information for the same 

 classes of vessels concerned in collisions, and so 

 on. You will observe from the figures that now 

 we have a different state of things. The pre- 

 ponderance is now on the side of English 

 vessels. The figures which I might briefly run 

 through no longer go by months now, but 

 give the totals for the entire year. I need 

 not give the details — I have given the details 

 on this sheet for each year from 1894 to 1901, 

 and then I have added them up and they 

 make a total of vessels arrested for fishing in 

 Danish territorial limits, of 78 English or rather 

 British steam trawlers ; 18 German steam 

 trawlers ; and there were 23 German sailing 

 trawlers. That shows that the number of 

 English vessels was very considerably in excess 

 of the Gorman. (Vide Appendix, .) 



2169. But now these figures would all be 

 greatly affected, would they not, by the desire to 

 respect the international law, or rather the 

 national laws of the tv/o countries. Do you 

 allege that the German trawlers or the British 

 trawlers are more inclined to break the law ? — 

 No, I am assuming that they are equally 

 adventurous. I assume, in order to try and 

 get an approximate valuation of the amount 

 of fishing, that the Englishman is not more 

 inclined to break the law than the German, al- 

 though I daresay it is possibly true that he is, a 

 little bit ; but on the whole I think the figures 

 may be taken (seeing that half of them are 

 accidental things or collisions) as reliable in 

 giving information as to the relative number of 

 English vessels fishing on these grounds com- 

 pared with the relative number of German. The 

 grand total for the whole term of years is 125 

 British steam trawlers as against 28 German 

 steam trawlers and 35 German sailing trawlers. 

 In the first year or two there were a few English 

 smacks from Hull and Grimsby concerned ; but 

 they are now extinct and no longer affect tiie 

 figures. On the whole we see there are 12.3 

 British fishing vessels as against 28 steam 

 trawlers and 35 sailing trawlers, that is to say, 

 63 German vessels ; in other words there are 

 only twice as many English vessels fishing on 

 those grounds as there are German vessels. 



2170. Can 



