286 BRITISH FISHERIES 



must be studied with reference to the particular 

 conditions involved, and regarded as a special 

 problem. 



Whitebait, sprat, and sardine fishing may be 

 dismissed at once, for there is no evidence that 

 the destruction of immature herrings or pilchards 

 has any prejudicial effect on the fisheries for these 

 creatures, whether in their immature or adult 

 stages. The immature fish question, so far as it 

 has become " practical politics," resolves itself into 

 two main sub-inquiries, which concern the de- 

 struction of small fish by deep-sea and inshore 

 trawlers, and by the shrimpers. I shall take the 

 former question first. We have seen that there is 

 a very considerable fishery for small flat fish on the 

 eastern side of the North Sea. At the very outset, 

 however, we are confronted by the invariable 

 difficulty encountered in all fishery inquiries — the 

 lack of accurate statistics. There are no figures 

 in existence which give (i) the relative numbers 

 of adult and immature flat fishes of the different 

 species on the grounds in question, and (2) the 

 quantity of fish landed from these grounds 

 annually by British and Continental fishermen. 

 It is certain, however, that a large amount of small 

 and nearly worthless fish are landed in England, 

 and that a great quantity are never packed and 

 brought home at all, but are at once thrown back 

 into the sea. It has nearly always been assumed 

 that all this destruction is wasteful, and that it is 



