LEGISLATION AND THE SEA FISHERIES 



163 



Board and fines inflicted for illegal fishing, but for some reason or 

 other these prosecutions were dropped. Eventually, in 1909, the 

 Fishery Board succeeded in getting an Act of Parliament passed to 

 prevent the landing or sale of fish within the United Kingdom 

 from steamers which, within the two months prior to the landing 

 or selling, had caught, or shipped, fish taken within the prohibited 

 areas set out in the Act. These prohibited areas comprised the 

 Moray Firth, the Firth of Clyde and the other extra-territorial 

 waters of the coasts of Scotland and Ireland. The Grimsby-cum- 

 Norway trawlers made several attempts to contravene the Act of 

 Parliament, but the resolute attitude of the Customs of&cials soon 

 convinced them that the game was not worth the candle. In 

 effect, then, these extra-territorial waters are closed to British 

 steam trawlers, and to foreign steam trawlers who desire to land 

 fish at British ports. They are, however, open to foreign steam 

 trawlers who intend to land the fish on the Continent. 



The extent of fishing by foreign steam trawlers in the Moray 

 Firth before and subsequent to the passing of the Trawling in 

 Prohibited Areas Prevention Act, 1909, is shown in the following 

 table, which gives particulars of the number of different foreign 

 trawlers reported fishing in the Firth, and the number of separate 

 occasions on which they were observed for the six years ending 

 19th October, 1913. 



The Act was aimed principally at the pseudo-Scandinavian 

 trawlers, and the average number of these vessels observed at work 

 during the four years subsequent to the Act, as compared with the 

 average for the two preceding years has fallen from twenty-seven 

 to fourteen, and the number of occasions on which they were 

 observed from 205 to 154. The benefit which might have been 

 expected to accrue from this reduction has been largely neutralised 

 by the increasing extent to which trawlers of other nationalities 

 have resorted to the Firth, in their case the number of individual 

 vessels has increased from fourteen to thirty-two, and the number 

 of occasions on which they were observed from twenty-nine to sixty- 

 seven. 



