xxvi 
Tenth Annual Report of the 
and culture the process has been not only successfully resisted, 
but the rich fertility of their shores in this source of wealth has 
been revived and even increased. We hope that the public mind 
of this country will soon awake to the vast importance of this 
instructive fact. 
The steady decline in the inshore fisheries explains how it is 
that we are now obliged to import such vast quantities from other 
countries— mussels for bait from Holland, lobsters from Norway 
and Canada, oysters from France, Holland, and America. This 
country could raise its supplies for itself if it chose to take the 
trouble. But the field requires to be cultivated and protected both 
against their own natural enemies and over-fishing, as has already 
been done in France, Holland, and America. It is, moreover, a 
field in which we do not require to fear competition, and this 
appears to us to be one of the chief subjects to which the attention 
of the future Board ought to be directed. For that purpose, however, 
the Board will require to be endowed with further powers. We 
can prohibit any mode of fishing which we consider injurious, 
but we cannot regulate the mesh of a net, or fix a close-time, nor 
provide (except in the territorial waters) that a certain portion of 
the sea shall periodically be protected, nor enact regulations to 
prevent the capture of immature fish. 
The Sea Fisheries Regulation Act, which was passed for England 
in 1888, empowers a local Fisheries Committee for a sea fisheries 
district to pass byelaws — 'restricting or prohibiting, either absolutely 
' or subject to regulations, any method of sea fishing for sea fish, or 
1 the use of any instrument of fishing for sea fish, and for deter- 
1 mining the size of mesh, form and dimensions of any instrument of 
1 fishing for sea fish.' In any new legislation we beg to submit that 
similar powers should be conferred on this Board. 
6. MARINE POLICE and FISHERY SUPERINTENDENCE. 
Vessels in During the past year this duty has been entrusted to the Board's 
Board'sservice. cru i ser ' Vigilant,' H.M.S. ' Jackal,' and H.M. Cutter Daisy, occa- 
sionally supplemented by the 'Firm,' 'Watchful/ and 'Eagle/ which 
were placed at the service of the Board by the Admiral Superin- 
tendent of Naval Reserves. 
We continue to receive frequent complaints of the inefficiency of 
this service in preventing trawling within the prohibited waters, 
which, however, is due to no want of zeal on the part of the 
officers and men, but to the system under which it is con- 
ducted, the character of the vessels employed, and the smallness 
of the number. The 'Garland/ having her scientific work to 
attend to, was never intended for police duty at all, and all the 
other vessels, except the 'Vigilant' and 'Jackal/ and ' Daisy/ are 
only available for a few months in the year. The following Table 
(which gives the number of prosecutions in each year, and the name 
of the vessel instrumental in the detection of the offenders) shows 
that these complaints are not unfounded 
