OUR SEA FISHEEIES. 253 



their spawn. These hanks are seldom in water of 

 more than ten or twelve fathoms' depth, and might, 

 therefore, he protected ; whereas, the majority of the 

 trawling which supplies our markets with their 

 constant and unfailing supply of splendid fish, is 

 carried on in water of twice or three times that depth, 

 where no harm whatever can he done, as fish are only 

 caught at such depths when in the highest season 

 and condition. To prohibit trawling in these places, 

 would be to destroy an immense branch of most 

 profitable industry, and to hand the supply of our 

 fish-markets over to foreigners. Frenchmen and 

 Dutchmen, whose operations we should be entirely 

 powerless to check, as this branch of fishing is, for 

 the most part, carried on far beyond three miles from 

 our coasts, and consequently where, over foreigners, 

 we should have no jurisdiction. Any such enact- 

 ment would not stop trawling for one moment. It 

 would simply extinguish our own trawling fleets, 

 which employ very many thousands of the best 

 sailors in the world, who keep the sea in the finest 

 fishing-boats that float, for five or six months at a 

 time without ever seeing the land. That trawling 

 should be prohibited in shallow water, or, if it be 

 thought necessary, within, let us say, the three mUes 

 of the shore over which we have jurisdiction, might 



