April 16, 1886.] 



SCIENCE. 



345 



tax-payers. I do not think that any sane man would 

 propose to establish a government office, composed 

 of chemists and metallurgists, for the purpose of 

 managing the business of the iron-masters. 



The case of the fishing industry, however, is 

 peculiar. The different classes of fishermen tend 

 to encroach on one another's liberties ; and in the 

 case of sea-fisheries the nation at large is proprie- 

 tor, and has an interest in their being properly 

 worked. Moreover, beyond the three-mile limit 

 the interests of English fishermen may come into 

 conflict with those of foreigners, and give rise to 

 international questions of great difficulty and deli- 

 cacy. Hence I have no doubt that some de- 

 partment of the government ought to be in close 

 relation with the fisheries, ought to be able to 

 interfere with them to some extent and under 

 certain circumstances, and ought to be able to 

 institute or undertake such scientific inquiries as 

 may be needful in order to obtain satisfactory 

 data for its action. 



My first connection with fishery questions dates 

 back now about a quarter of a century, and from 

 that time to this I have taken every opportunity 

 of urging the formation of a government depart- 

 ment, such as I imagine is now about to be estab- 

 lished, empowered to deal with the fisheries on 

 these principles. 



I think that such a fishery department should — 



1. Collect accurate statistical and other infor- 

 mation respecting the fisheries of England and 

 bearing upon fishery interests in general, and 

 present a yearly report, to be laid before parlia- 

 ment, based thereupon. 



2. That it should be empowered to inquire into 

 grievances of fishermen and suggestions for im- 

 provement of the fisheries. Hitherto the only 

 method open to those who were, or supposed 

 themselves to be, aggrieved was to get a royal 

 commission of inquiry appointed. AVithin my 

 experience, three of these commissions have in- 

 quired at intervals af eight or nine years, at great 

 cost of trouble and money, into the same questions 

 regarding the sea-fisheries, and have arrived at 

 practically the same results. 



3. That it should have power of inquiry to make 

 orders regulating or restricting acts of fishery. 



4. That it should be empowered to obtain such 

 scientific assistance as may be needful. 



It is to this last point that the questions ad- 

 dressed to me are more particularly directed ; but 

 I could hardly have answered them satisfactorily 

 unless I had sketched forth my general views as 

 to the justification and the limits of state inter- 

 ference in fishery matters. I have had something 

 to do both with science and with administration, 

 and it is in the interest of both that I express 



my strong conviction that they ought to be kept 

 separate. 



The function of the man of science is to ascer- 

 tain facts, and give advice based upon that which 

 he has ascertained. He may be the most com- 

 petent person in the world to do that, and, at the 

 same time, wholly unfit for administrative duties. 

 If, again, we consider the four kinds of action to 

 which, I believe, the operations of a fishery 

 department should be restricted, what is the 

 advantage of setting a skilled naturalist to collect 

 and digest statistics, or to draw up regulations 

 and orders, or to weary out his soul in the routine 

 business of an administrative office ? What he is 

 wanted for is to act, first, as an assessor in 

 inquiries, and, secondly, as an investigator of such 

 problems as bear directly upon those fishery ques- 

 tions in which the general public is interested. 

 For example, the nation at large has an interest in 

 providing against the practice of unduly wasteful 

 modes of fishing, as tending to the wanton 

 destruction of its property ; and I should say that 

 any amount of money bestowed upon the 

 scientific investigation of the effect of some modes 

 of fishing might be well spent. 



I am strongly of opinion that the best method 

 of bringing science into its proper relation with 

 the fishery department is that the latter, when it 

 requires a scientific answer for an inquiry, or 

 when it desires that a scientific problem should 

 be thoroughly investigated, should apply to the 

 president and council of the Eoyal society to nom- 

 inate a person or persons to undertake the work. 

 That is a course frequently pursued by other 

 governmental departments, and it works very 

 satisfactorily. However, if it should be thought 

 better to have a permanent adviser, or a permanent 

 committee of reference, I see no great objection 

 to the adoption of either of these plans. 



But what I desire to repudiate as strongly as 

 possible, in the name and the interest of science, 

 no less than in that of the working fisherman, is the 

 proposal which I see continually pressed in letters 

 addressed to the papers, to appoint a body of 

 scientific men to 1 manage ' the fisheries. In the 

 first place, the proposition is futile, for anybody 

 who knows any thing about the feeling among the 

 smack owners and working fishermen is aware 

 that they would not listen to such a proposal for 

 a moment. In the second place, the notion that 

 the fisheries want managing by a government 

 office, and that the fishing business, like every 

 other, ought not, as far as possible, to be left to 

 manage itself, is, in my opinion, utterly foolish 

 and mischievous. And, in the third place, if the 

 fisheries were to be thus managed, men of science 

 are no more the right people to be intrusted with 



