xvi THE SEA FISHERIES 



international character, but here again there was no question of 

 union or fusion for general adminstration.^ 



In 1914 the Reports of two fishery committees were published, 

 the Departmental Committee on Inshore Fisheries (Board of 

 Agriculture and Fisheries) and the Scottish Departmental Com- 

 mittee on the North Sea Fishing Industry. The Report of the 

 former committee contains no reference to the question of joint 

 administration, but the evidence given before it by the official 

 representative of Irish Fisheries (the late Mr. W. Spotswood Green) 

 shows that Ireland, at any rate, did not desire a Central Authority for 

 administrative purposes. The Scottish Report contains no evidence 

 of a desire on the part of Scotland to amalgamate with the other 

 countries. 



It is evident, therefore, that such desire as exists is to be found at 

 the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries, and, indeed, there is proof that 

 the Board wish to absorb the other two departments. The National 

 Sea Fisheries Protection Association at their Conference at Great 

 Yarmouth in 1909 passed a resolution in favour of one Central 

 Authority for the United Kingdom, and at their Annual General 

 Meeting in 1916 the head of the fisheries department at the Board 

 of Agriculture and Fisheries is reported to have expressed himself 

 as follows : " His proposal was that in order to get real progress 

 they wanted to get rid of the present anomalous situation in which 

 the fisheries of the United Kingdom were administered by three 

 separate departments. It was almost as if they had three Admiralties 

 for three component parts of the kingdom. He had great hopes 

 that in some dim and distant future there would be one central 

 administration for fisheries." 



It is to be feared that these hopes are doomed to disappointment. 

 There is, then, little or no reason to believe that any improvement 

 in administration would be effected by the fusion of the three 

 central departments. As will be seen from the context, the depart- 

 ments in both Ireland and Scotland are well administered. In the 

 former country the possibility, to put it no higher, of Home Rule 

 makes any discussion of amalgamation unreal ; and the latter 

 country with a Fishery Board of high standing and a fine record 

 is hardly Ukely to be so ill-advised as to consent to relinquish 

 control of its fisheries. 



To consider now each of the three countries separately, we find 

 that in Scotland there is a separate Fishery Board, while in Ireland 

 and England the fisheries are associated with another department, 



1 There is an Addendum to the Report of the Committee of 1908 (signed by 

 five of the ten members) urging the necessity of centralising the general fishery 

 administration of the United Kingdom. This recommendation was not subscribed 

 to by either the members representing Scotland or Ireland on the Committee. 



