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APPENDIX E— No. I. 



REPORT ON THE TRAWLING EXPERIMENTS ON THE EAST 

 COAST. PART I.— PRELIMINARY. By J. C. Ewart, M.D., 

 and Sir J. Ramsay-Gibson-Maitland, Bart. 



With Plates I., II., and III. 



Introduction. 



The Commissioners appointed in 1883 to inquire and report on the 

 influence of trawling in the territorial waters of the United Kingdom 

 made the following amongst other recommendations :* — ' That in the mean- 

 1 time powers be given to the Scotch Fishery Board similar to those of 

 ' the Irish Board, enabling them to make bye-laws for the regulation or 

 ' suspension of beam trawling, or of any other mode of fishing within 

 1 territorial waters, and that a sum of money be granted annually by the 

 ' Treasury for the purposes mentioned in the last paragraph. 



'That statutory powers and means be given to the fishery authorities 

 ' to enable them to collect adequate statistics. 



' That the cruisers serving under the Scotch Fishery Board, whether 

 ' employed for police or scientific purposes, be replaced by efficient steam 

 ' vessels.'* 



These recommendations were made apparently because the Commis- 

 sioners satisfied themselves that — 1. In the territorial waters, from the 

 Moray Firth to Grimsby, there was (a) * a falling off of flat fish/ and 

 (b) 1 a decrease of haddocks in certain places;' 2. ' The number of fish on 

 ' particular grounds, especially in narrow waters, may be sensibly dimin- 

 ' ished by the use of the beam trawl ; ' and 3. ' In the absence of a proper 

 ' system of fishery statistics and scientific observations, it is impossible to 

 1 discover the causes or measure the fluctuations of the fisheries.' 



As the direct result of these recommendations, the Sea Fisheries 

 (Scotland) Amendment Act, 1885 (48 and 49 Vict. c. 70), was passed, 

 empowering the Fishery Board, when satisfied that any mode of fishing in 

 any part of the sea adjoining Scotland, and within the exclusive fishery 

 limits of the British Islands, is injurious to any kind of sea fishing within 

 that part, or where it appears to the Fishery Board desirable to make 

 experiments or observations with the view of ascertaining whether any 

 particular mode of fishing is injurious, or for the purposes of fish culture or 

 experiments in fish culture, to make bye-laws for restricting or prohibiting, 

 either entirely or subject to such regulations as may be provided by the 

 bye-law, any method of fishing for sea fish within the said part, during 

 such time or times as they may think fit, and may from time to time 

 make bye-laws for altering or revoking any such bye-laws. 



After the necessary preliminary inquiries had been made and the statu- 

 tory regulations complied with, the following bye-law was made by the 

 Board and duly confirmed by the Secretary for Scotland, (The Right 

 Honourable the Earl of Dalhousie, K.C.B.) : — 



* Report of the Commissioners on Trawl, Net, and Beam Trawl Fishing, pre- 

 sented to Parliament, March 1885. 



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