THE FISHERIES IN 1863 13 



Act was found effective, and "trawling" for herring 

 was at length completely suppressed. 



It must be pointed out that the Fishery Board did 

 not seek this additional restrictive legislation. The 

 repressive Trawling Acts were brought about by 

 " ill-will and conflicts engendered among rival 

 classes of fishermen," and by the influence brought 

 to bear on Parliament by drift-netters, curers, and 

 others, " whose immediate interests were deeply 

 concerned in obtaining a repression of trawling, 

 which interfered with the prevalent system of fish- 

 ing, and lessened its gains." ^ The opposition of 

 the merchants and curers to trawling was due to 

 the fact that, by means of this method of fishing, 

 large quantities of fresh herrings were thrown into 

 the market at low prices, because the trawlers pre- 

 ferred supplying the fresh-fish markets rather than 

 the curers. This helped the competition with the 

 latter, and the prices of cured fish fell. Under the 

 Trawling Acts this competition was minimised, and 

 the price of cured fish again rose, and the consumer 

 suffered. Also, in consequence of this, Norwegian 

 cured herrings were able, in bad years, to compete 

 favourably in British markets. 



The Trawling Acts had other effects which 

 illustrate the extreme difficulty inherent in fisheries 

 legislation. By making the seine-net an illegal 

 instrument for catching herrings, a flourishing 

 fishery for sprats in the Firth of Forth (worth 



1 Report of the Commission on Herring Trawling in Scotland, 1863. 



