156 THE SEA FISHERIES 



I am, therefore, not prepared to offer evidence at the present stage 

 as to what size limits are desirable." 



The Select Committee expressed their opinion that the proper 

 way to protect the fishing grounds in the North Sea was by an 

 international agreement between all the powers concerned. 



The Bill passed the House of Lords, but was rejected by the 

 Commons. Since the report of the Committee of 1904, statistical 

 evidence has been accumulated which throws light on the North 

 Sea fishing grounds, and also on the relative value of the newly 

 discovered grounds as compared with the old favourite. The official 

 statistics published by the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries show 

 that while the quantity of demersal fish landed in England and 

 Wales from beyond the North Sea has increased enormously until 

 1911 that taken from the North Sea itself has declined : — 



Weight in Tons of Demersal Fish Landed in 

 England and Wales 



1903. 1904. 1905. 1906. 1907. 1908. 



North Sea . . 260,313 230,975 207,440 217,572 220,609 204,008 

 Beyond North Sea 67,625 78,216 93,395 203,863 224,380 228,175 



T909. 1910. 1911. 1912. 1913. 



North Sea . . 198,505 186,628 185,752 187,018 169,272 

 Beyond North Sea 241,214 241,106 252,118 250,470 248,765 



In 1907, for the first time, the demersal fish taken beyond the 

 North Sea exceeded that taken in the North Sea itself ; in suc- 

 ceeding years this preponderance of the extra-North-Sea grounds 

 has become more and more marked. The value of the various 

 fishing grounds from the purely utilitarian point of view of the 

 director of a steam trawling company, whose sole object is to provide 

 his shareholders with as handsome a dividend as possible, may be 

 arrived at by another calculation. The weight of fish caught per 

 day's absence from port affords an estimate of this desirable feature 

 of the fishing grounds. A safer test of the productivity would be 

 furnished by the yield per day's fishing, but as the amount of fishing 

 on a given ground is regulated not by philanthropic, but by purely 

 profit-making considerations, the strain that may be put m the 

 future on any area may fairly be estimated in the above manner. 

 The table (see Appendix III, p. 276) shows the w^^f t;"^ ^;^^^ 

 per day's absence from port of steam trawlers on the fishing grounds 

 from 1906 to 1913, the whole period for which such figures are 

 available. 



