PUBLIC FISHERIES FOR SHELLFISH 213 



removed from the mussels by this treatment ; so far no details 

 of this method have been made public. Incidentally the process 

 is somewhat expensive, and could only be carried out where there 

 is a fairly important mussel fishery. 



In Cardigan Bay the Lancashire and Western Committee have 

 proceeded on slightly different lines. Mussels are accepted from 

 any part of the estuaries of the Dovey and Mawddach and placed 

 in special tanks for forty-eight hours, where they live in ordinary 

 sea water which only enters the tank near the top of the tide, and 

 on Johnstone's theory should be free from serious contamination. 

 It is claimed that this treatment results in the elimination of all 

 serious risk of the mussels becoming carriers of infection. Towards 

 the end of 1918 the Board definitely condemned this system as 

 unsatisfactory, and in a phrase reminiscent of the first command- 

 ment they say that no practicable process of cleansing can be re- 

 garded as satisfactory which does not follow in general the lines of 

 the system initiated by them at Conway. 



The by-law compelling the local fishermen to place their mussels 

 in the tanks for cleansing purposes for not less than forty-eight 

 hours cannot be enforced unless approved by the Board of Agri- 

 culture and Fisheries. Since the Board have definitely refused their 

 consent the tanks are worked on a voluntary arrangement, so far 

 loyally acquiesced in by the fishermen, subject to a proviso that 

 mussels within a certain specified distance of the sewer outfall may 

 not be gathered at all. 



Matters are thus at a deadlock so far as these Cardigan Bay 

 mussels are concerned. Indeed, the only logical outcome of the 

 Board's attitude is to prevent the sale of all mussels gathered for 

 human consumption everywhere in England and Wales, until such 

 mussels " have been treated under strict supervision in water which 

 has been previously sterilised, and are subjected to other precau- 

 tionary measures designed to secure their immunity from subse- 

 quent contamination." 



It remains to be seen whether the Board has the courage of its 

 convictions. 



