xliv 



Thirty-third Annual Report 



was £31,000. The value of the output in 1913 was calculated at 

 £33,400, and the decline from that figure was due solely to the diminished 

 and irregular supply of livers obtainable, as the price of oil was not 

 sensibly affected by the war. Three firms confined themselves to the 

 manufacture of medicinal oil, and the remaining five to industrial oil. 



Up to 1st August, the prices paid by the factories for the raw 

 material were as follows : — for hard offal (heads and bones), from 

 20s. to 25s. per ton, and for soft offal (guts, etc.) 17s. 6d. per ton. There- 

 after only 10s. per ton was paid for the former, and for the latter 

 7s. 6d. In 1913 the prices paid were respectively from 22s. 6d. to 

 28s. 6d., and lis. 



PERSONS ENGAGED IN THE SCOTTISH SEA FISHERIES AND 

 ALLIED INDUSTRIES. 



The numbers of persons employed in connection with the Scottish 

 sea fisheries in 1914, classified according to the several branches of 

 the industry in which they were engaged, are shown in Appendix F, 

 No. I. (p. i42). The total for the industry was 87,119, being a de- 

 crease of 3591 as compared with the preceding year. The decrease 

 occurred almost wholly among persons engaged in carrying fish 

 and curing material by sea, and is directly attributable to the dis- 

 organisation caused by the war. 



Of the total number to whom the fisheries afford permanent or 

 occasional employment, between 40 and 50 per cent. — 37,594 in 1914 — 

 are directly engaged in fishing operations. Although the fishing 

 population as a whole has been almost stationary for a number of 

 years, it has not been so as regards particular districts, and a decrease 

 of 668 fishermen since 1913 is more than accounted for by a steady 

 change which is taldng place in Shetland, where many of the small 

 landholders, under changed conditions of land tenure, and from 

 other causes, find that they are now able to support themselves on 

 the produce of their holdings alone, and are gradually abandoning the 

 sea. On the other hand, there has been a tendency to centralisation 

 at the trawler port of Aberdeen, and the drifter ports from Peterhead 

 to Lossiemouth, where the fishermen now number 14,291, as com- 

 pared with 10,545 ten years ago. Shetland and Stornoway continue 

 to contribute the greatest numbers of any individual Districts ; but the 

 fishermen of those Districts are nearly all landholders, who engage in 

 fishing only incidentally or as hired hands on East Coast drifters. Of 

 the total number of fishermen 58, 17, and 25 per cent, are referable to the 

 East Coast, Orkney and Shetland, and the West Coast respectively ; 

 20,000 of the fishermen are engaged on sailing drifters and smaller 

 craft, 11,500 on steam drifters and liners, 3000 on trawlers, and nearly 

 3000 on motor boats of all sizes. The three latter classes are increasing 

 at the expense of the first. 



Persons engaged in curing operations are numerically next in 

 importance, although the greater proportion of them are gutters 

 engaged only during the summer and autumn while the herring 

 fishings are in progress. A reflection of the successful fishings of 

 recent years is seen in the increase — amounting to 7 per cent, in 1914 — 

 again recorded in the number of coopers, while the number of gutters 



