SEA-FISHERIES LABORATORY. 83 



mussel-fisheries of the Lancashire Coast are concerned there is 

 little hope of similar measures being taken, and I can only 

 suggest that the cleansing of polluted mussels for the markets 

 is a matter for controlled private enterprise. I see no reason 

 why this should not be successful, and no reason why the 

 Fisheries Organisation Society should not enable a mussel- 

 fisherman's Co-operative Society at Morecambe to construct 

 and operate a mussel- cleansing tank. 



The International Fisheries Investigations. 



The above allusions to some of the difficulties under which 

 the fishing industries labour are really pertinent, for it does 

 not appear to me that fishery research just now has much 

 relation to the problems that more immediately concern the 

 fishermen and the owners of fishing vessels — whose existence 

 is the reason why there are fishery administrators and investi- 

 gators at all. 



I attended the meeting of the International Council for the 

 exploration of the sea, which was held in London, in March, 

 1920. This was the first post-war meeting, and it was very 

 fortunate that it was possible. It is known that but for pressure 

 brought to bear upon the Government during the war years, 

 by the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries, the British contri- 

 bution would have been withdrawn. In that case there is little 

 doubt that the International organisation would have broken 

 up, and, as things are, it is pretty certain that it could not 

 have been resuscitated for some years to come. It is fortunate, 

 then, that the Council met when it did and took up the threads 

 dropped in 1914 : still, one must confess, it was disappointing 

 to find that the representatives chose to look backwards rather 

 than forwards in March, 1920. 



To the scientific men the fishery problems were still the 

 same as they were in 1914. Research, whether in fishery or in 

 mathematics, must be entirely personal if it is to have complete 

 success. Its mainspring is the curiosity and the desire to make 



