THE TRAWLING COMMISSION 43 



But the foreign boat could not legally land and sell 

 the fish so caught at a Scottish port, though she 

 might do so at an English port. Thus there arose 

 this anomaly in fisheries legislation : a foreign 

 trawler might make (say) Fleetwood her port of 

 landing, and fish steadily in the closed offshore 

 waters of the Firth of Clyde, returning with her 

 catch to that port.^ At the same time the Fleet- 

 wood trawler was prohibited from fishing in the 

 same area. The anomaly might have been pre- 

 vented by making the sale of trawl fish caught 

 within Scottish closed waters illegal in British 

 ports, but this was not done, and to that extent 

 the restrictive legislation failed in its object. 



I have now traced the origin of the restrictive 

 trawling legislation so far as Scotland is concerned. 

 The same policy was initiated later on in England, 

 but at the initiative of fisheries authorities which 

 were not created till a later period. 



1 This has actually been the practice. See Rept. Superintendent 

 Lancashire Sea-Fisheries District for June 1903. 



