MARINE BIOLOGICAL STATION AT PORT ERIN. 51 



whether anything could be done to stem the depopulation 

 of the ocean if that depopulation was actually going on? 

 (Applause.) That work must be divided under two heads 

 — statistical and biological. The statistical work could 

 not, of course, be properly performed by a University such 

 as that. That was a matter which must be taken in hand 

 by the central authority. This country was spending a 

 large sum of money upon an international investigation 

 of the North Sea. He confessed that in the early days 

 of that investigation a great deal of money was spent on 

 hydrographical, meteorological, and physical subjects — 

 all very interesting, but not tending towards the solution 

 of practical problems. He hoped that that was going to 

 be in a great measure remedied, and that the statistics 

 which could be collected from the fishermen who brought 

 their fish into our ports might give valuable data upon 

 which to endeavour to solve those practical problems. 

 Some of those problems were necessary of solution, and 

 until we found answers to them — those that affected our 

 home and territorial waters — the efficient supervision of 

 our fisheries was next to impossible. (Applause.) He 

 looked very largely to the Lancashire Sea Fisheries 

 Committee, acting in conjunction with the University 

 of Liverpool, to pursue the biological part of those 

 inquiries. (Applause.) The University had got an 

 excellent Laboratory, and an excellent staff of naturalists 

 working under Professor Herdman, and the Sea Fisheries 

 Committee had got a vessel which they could send out to 

 bring in the specimens for the naturalists to work upon. 

 With those three things they might do great service not 

 only to this part of the country, but to marine biological 

 questions for the whole of England. (Applause.) He 

 was in hopes that when the expenditure of this country 

 upon the international investigation of the North Sea 



