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Part III. — Eighteenth Annual Report 



as follows — and the objections have been always of the same nature : — 

 (1) Immature herrings may be caught by it. (2) The seine nets disturb 

 and disperse the shoals of fish in entering the estuaries from the sea, 

 and in consequence the fish desert the waters which they would other- 

 wise have frequented. (3) The seine nets sweep across the beds where 

 the fish are depositing their spawn, and not only take the spawning 

 herrings, but destroy the spawn which has been deposited. (4) Herrings 

 caught by the seine net are not fit for curing, on account of injury 

 received in their capture. (5) The trawlers, or seiners, cut the drift 

 nets and destroy the floats. (6) The two systems cannot be carried on 

 together in narrow waters, as the trawlers get foul of the drift nets 

 and drive away the fish. (7) The extravagant gains of the trawlers, 

 monopolised by a few, alter the market prices by sudden fluctuations, to 

 the great detriment of the drift-net fishermen, who prosecute their 

 labour in a more steady and less gambling manner. 



The trawlers, or seiners, on the other hand, denied these allegations, 

 and rested their case on the following grounds: (1) They admitted that 

 when the mesh of the net is less than the legal standard (one inch) they 

 caught immature fish, but they denied that it is their interest to do so, 

 and stated that larger and finer herrings were caught by the trawl 

 than can be got by the drift net. (2) They denied that the enclosure 

 of the herrings in a net drawn gently around them could disturb the 

 general shoal of fish so much as their meeting numerous walls of drift 

 netting. (3) They denied interference with the spawning beds. (4) 

 They declared that seine-caught fish are not only good for the fresh 

 market, which they desired to supply, but also for curing. (5) They 

 denied injuring drift nets, and saw no difficulty in carrying on the two 

 systems of fishing together. (6) They asserted that the large hauls got 

 by the trawlers were of great benefit to the consumer of fish, by 

 enabling him to get herring much cheaper than he could by drift-net 

 fishing. 



Besides making personal investigation at Loch Fyne and other parts 

 of the coast, the Commissioners examined the statistics and other 

 evidence placed at their disposal by the Board of Fisheries, which 

 showed that the gross yield of the herring fishing in Loch Fyne had 

 increased rather than diminished, notwithstanding the use of the seine- 

 trawl, and that the same was true of the whole West Coast. " When we 

 look back," they say, "to the records of the fishing in Loch Fyne for 

 the last fifty or sixty years, we find many periods of bad fishing and 

 gloomy depression on the part of the fishermen, [n such times of panic 

 they have always been ready to demand legislative protection against 

 other classes of fishermen who were supposed to be interfering with 

 their interests. Thus, in 1836, the Fishery Ofiicer at Loch Fyne, 

 expressing the views of the fishermen there, entreats the Board to pro- 

 tect that loch from ruin, by putting down all fishing on the East Coasts 

 of Scotland during the only months when it was productive, because 

 the West Coast fishermen are persuaded that it is the fish of the West 

 Coast which travel to the East Coast to spawn. In fact, every time 

 that there is a panic, the reasons assigned for the failure of the herring 

 alter, but are strongly pressed upon the Fishery Board as demands for 

 immediate prohibitory measures." 



The Commission came to the conclusion that trawling, or seining, for 

 herrings had not been injurious, and had not diminished the productive- 

 ness of the fishery in Loch Fyne, which had increased, and that this 

 mode of fishing furnished an important means of cheapening fish to the 

 consumer. They condemned the Trawling Acts. "Although recent 

 legislation," they said, " has been in logicial sequence of that which has 



