48 
our coast may therefore, in the meantime, not be contemplated. The 
majority of our line fishermen, and their descendants for some time 
to come, at any rate, will still try to make the best of their limited 
means of making a living. The fisherman is a specialist, but the 
life-brigade and the life-boat otfer a change to his energies. It may 
he possible to suggest some other local industries which while 
adding to his income, would allcw him to carry on his fishing, and 
if these are allied to fishing so much the better. Such local outlets 
for his energies will still further tend to keep off a day when one 
could write that all fishermen are trawlers. 
But if the fisheries arc suffering from over-fishing now, they 
would not be likely to he any better, but a great deal worse, if 
all the energy which is now expended in fishing were put into this 
one form of fishing. And that is just the question to which we 
want an answer. Are the fisheries being depleted ? Does the 
evidence I have just given support the contention of fishermen 
and others that the North Sea is being fished beyond its resources, 
or are the nearer grounds, at least which the in-shore fisherman can 
reach with his boat, suffering from over-fishing ? 
It is not set forth with a claim to its being a conclusive state- 
ment, but as a contribution to the facts, or rather want of facts 
hearing on the question. Our trawling experiments afford evidence 
likewise, but for reasons I have already given, we are not yet in a 
position to put the statements of the fishermen and our experimental 
results together. 
The best contribution would be reliable statistics, and if they 
are worth having at all, they ought to be as accurate as possible. 
It is to be hoped, also, that the international Conference, recently 
held in Bergen will be the means of bringing about such a vigorous 
hydrographical and biological investigation of the Nortli and 
neighbouring seas that the local facts and figures will gain a 
significance, now not quite clear, and lead to an international effort 
to keep up, or as seems to be necessary, to restore the North Sea 
Fisheries. 
Seventh. — The principal change in regard to the herring fishing 
as far as the villages along the coast are concerned, is that fewer 
fishermen now prosecute this form of fishing. That it is still 
lucrative, if variable is shown by the fact that large fleets follow 
the advent of the different varieties all round the coast ; and that 
steam is being more and more introduced to make the fishing still 
more effective. 
