SELECT COMMITTEE ON THE SEA FISHERIES BILL. 



125 



17 March 1904.] 



Mr. Gakstang. 



[Coiitmued. 



Chairman — continued. 



■draw certain practical conclusions from the 

 examination of those statistics, and I would ask 



jour Lordship to observe the nature of those 



-conclusions. He says in the second place : 

 " There must be a sufficient replenishment (i.e., 

 by immigration or growth) to balance the 

 quantity of marketable produce annually fished 

 out." These are certain general propositions; 



.and, thirdly, he continues : " The number of 

 steamers or other fishing vessels ought not to 



■exceed a certain maximum." He then proceeds 

 to say : " An indication that the number ot 

 steamers in the North Sea has already exceeded 

 the critical point can be recognised in the fact 

 that the steamers disperse m ever increasing 

 numbers toward the more distant and less fished 

 regions " ; and then he concludes also that the 



-annual replenishment of the stock of ground 

 fishes in the North Sea under present conditions 

 is not keeping pace with the quantity of fish 

 taken out of tlie sea. In other words, we have 

 in this paper of Dr. Henking a statement of the 



'German views based upon recent experiences of 

 their own fishing, and 1 submit that those views 

 materially alter the prospects of German co- 



■ operation in international legislation. They are 

 themselves confronted now with the same danger 

 that our English fishermen are confi-onted with. 



■ They see from their own figures that the catches 



• of their own steam trawlers are going down from 

 year to year, and of course the price of fish cannot 

 indefinitely go up to compensate. They are, there- 

 fore confronted with a grave practical problem. 

 I believe, and I know from conversation with 

 them, that they are very anxious to have an 



■ exhaustive inquiry into the situation as regards 

 the fisheries, and I believe that in spite of their 

 •original desire not to impede the growth of their 

 own fleets, they now recognise both the fact that 

 the growth of their fleets indefinitely is 

 impossible and that it is to their own interest to 

 find out in what way the stock of fish in the sea 



• can be increased. 



2260. But presumably they would desire that 

 England, which has by far the largest number of 

 vessels, should take some steps to protect the 

 fish ? — I think their view is that they do not 

 believe in what I may call experimental legisla- 

 tion. They believe in an inquiry beforehand; they 

 waiit to have the facts put in a clear way, so that 

 they may know what are the dangers confronting 

 them and what possible remedies can be 



■devised. 



2261. Do you think that their ideas are in the 

 -direction of limiting the total number of vessels 

 fishing in the North Sea ? — This clearly indicates 

 that they recognise the fact that the develop- 

 ment of vessels indefinitely cannot be continued ; 

 but at the same time that is a matter which 

 would remedy itself There is no need to 



-artificially limit the number of boats. The 

 boats sooner or later will stop growing in 

 numbers when the fishing ceases to pay. 



2262. Are you aware that the Council passed 

 -a resolution upon this subject the other day at 



Hamburg ? — Having regard to this Bill ? 



2263. " That it is desirable that in the event 

 of a law being passed in Great Britain giving 

 powers to ma^ke experiments for restricting the 



Ghairma n — continued, 

 destruction of undersized fish, powers be also 

 taken by the various Governments concerned^ to 

 make experiments for restricting the destruction 

 of undersized flat fish " ; that would be in accor- 

 dance with the general idea which you were 

 giving us just now ? — I do not know whether I 

 am entitled to speak on this point as I was not 

 a Commissioner at that meeting. I would ask 

 your Lordship whether I should express my own 

 recollection as to the general view which pre- 

 vailed at the time when that resolution was put 

 forward ? 



2264. If you please ? — There was some dis- 

 cussion at the time when that proposal was 

 before the Council, and the Dutch and Belgian 

 representatives could not understand the terms 

 of the resolution. The resolution, if I remember 

 rightly, spoke of Great Britain obtaining power 

 to make experiments for the prevention of the 

 destruction of immature fish ? 



2265. Quite right? — I remember that Pro- 

 fessor Max Weber, one of the Dutch representa- 

 tives, got up and asked whether the jEnglish 

 Government required to pass laws in order to 

 make experiments. Of course he confused 

 between what we understand as legislative ex- 

 periments and what we may call scientific 

 trawling experiments. I must say that I think 

 the resoludon was passed under some misappre- 

 hension. I know that the general feeling is in 

 favour of enquiry — a comprehensive enquiry, 

 and I believe that they all agree that if the 

 destruction of undersized flat fish can be proved 

 scientifically and statistically to be injurious to 

 the development of the fishery, they will be pre- 

 pared to consider on their merits any proposals 

 for regulating the fisheries internationally. 



2266. But how would it be possible for us to 

 restrict the destruction of undersized fish except 

 by legislation? — There is no other way. But 

 there are two ways of doing that ; either to do 

 it bv national legislation pure and simple, 

 which only touches the fringe of the problem, 

 and in many ways has objections to it ; or there 

 is the international way ; and my point is that I 

 feel quite confident that if these investigations 

 are carried out fully and completely the 

 foreigners, the Germans and the Dutch, in 

 spite of their prepossession against restrictive 

 legislation, Avill be fully prepared to join with 

 all the other countries in effective national 

 legislation when the necessity has been clearly 

 proved. 



2267. I want to draw your attention with 

 regard to that resolution, to the fact that it was 

 distinctly stated in the resolution that " it is 

 desirable that in the event of a law being passed 



Great Britain, giving power to make 



in 



experiments for restricting the destruction of 

 undersized fish " and so on. Therefore it seems 

 to me difficult to see how they could have had 

 any misunderstanding on that point, because it 

 expressly says "in the event of a law being 

 passed ? " — And that gave rise to Professor 

 Weber's question, " Does Great Britain require a 

 law to enable it to make experiments ? " The 

 whole explanation of that question was, that he 

 was under some confusion as to the nature of 

 the experiments which the resolution meant. 



He 



