THE INSHORE FISHERIES 183 



As to funds, it is recommended that the cost of of&cial fishery 

 administration in England and Wales be a charge on national 

 funds as in Scotland and Ireland, instead of partly on local 

 authorities as at present ; and that the Central Department should 

 be directly endowed with ample funds for all the purposes of fishery 

 development recommended in the report, as weU as for the proper 

 enforcement of such by-laws as may be found necessary in view of 

 the changes recommended. With this proposed enlargement of the 

 powers of the Central Department there is a corresponding decrease 

 in the powers of the local committees. In fact, the committees 

 as at present constituted will be dissolved, and local advisory bodies 

 substituted. The representatives of the contributing authorities 

 would, like the authorities themselves, disappear on the new advisory 

 bodies ; the members of which would be entirely nominated by the 

 Central Department. It will easUy be seen that what is proposed 

 is the substitution of a bureaucratic system in the place of repre- 

 sentation of the ratepayers. 



The chief official witness of the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries 

 suggested that that Board should take over the fisheries work 

 performed by the Board of Trade, a suggestion which was adopted 

 by the Departmental Committee ; but the same witness when 

 asked as to how many of the staff of the Board of Agriculture and 

 Fisheries were conversant with the details of inshore fishing, replied 

 to the effect that the Board were " shorthanded," and " we have 

 not a full staff, and the existing officers have been so pressed with 

 work that they have not been round the coast as much as their 

 duties require." The fact is, that up to the present the Central 

 Department has taken no interest whatever in the fate of the 

 inshore fishermen. 



During the progress of the war the Board of Agriculture and 

 Fisheries commenced to put into force one of the Committee's 

 recommendations. Six local resident inspectors and six assistant 

 inspectors were appointed " to study and care for the interests 

 of the fisheries, which involves multifarious activities that cannot 

 be described in answer to a Parliamentary question." 



Although the fisheries of Ireland are potentially of great value 

 they do not appear to have been exploited by the local fishermen. 

 It is said that in 1553 Philip II of Spain obtained a licence for his 

 subjects to fish off the north coast of Ireland for the term of twenty- 

 one years, paying an annual sum of £1000 for the privilege. In 

 the reign of Elizabeth an Irish statute prohibited foreign vessels 

 from fishing in Irish Seas without a licence. The cost of this licence 

 was 13s. 4d. annually for 12-ton vessels. In the time of the Common- 

 wealth Swedish vessels were permitted to fish off the Irish coast. 



