TRAWLING. 
381 
prising spirit by which this important fishery has been carried on. 
Some thirty years ago a considerable number of trawling vessels 
belonged to Barking, and they were partly owned by Messrs. 
Hewitt and Co., of London, fish salesmen, who, seeing the 
advantages Great Yarmouth offered for working the North Sea, 
determined to shift all their craft to that port : this necessitated 
the fishermen and their families moving to that place also; and 
soon Barking, as a trawling fishing town, became extinct. 
Lowestoft in turn began to be seized upon by Devonshire men, 
who had previously settled at Eamsgate ; and, going back not more 
than thirty years, an increase from some half-dozen smacks then 
to two hundred to-day has taken place, and is still proceeding at 
a satisfactory rate. 
Not only in number of boats has this improvement gone on, 
but in size, in construction, in speed, and in sea-going qualities 
there has been a marked improvement, and the fleets from Scar- 
borough, Hull, Great Grimsby, Great Yarmouth, Lowestoft, and 
Ramsgate, are supplemented by a respectable contingent yearly from 
Brixham of some sixty craft. The North Sea is the scene of their 
daily and nightly operations, reaping the rich harvest of its depths 
as food for the people, the supply of which does not appear to be 
materially affected by the increasing demand upon its fruitfulness. 
And when we think for a moment that not less than 2000 British 
trawling vessels are constantly fishing the North Sea, it is not too 
much to expect that the State should be ready to assist this 
important industry by wise and practical legislation, assisted by 
practical men, instead, as is too often the case, by mere departmental 
officials, who, to use a fisherman's way of putting it, don't know a 
hake from a herring. Up to the present the State has done little 
or nothing to help the development of this vast industry ; in fact, 
it has been almost entirely ignorant of its growth and importance 
to the country, and has only very recently taken any steps to 
understand its duty. 
I have so far given you some faint idea of the growth of 
Trawling in the North, which is the principal locality of this 
fishery ; but it must also be mentioned, in passing, that at Fleet- 
wood and Tenby there is also this kind of fishing going on, though 
not of such importance as in the places already mentioned. 
The method of prosecuting the fishery is somewhat different 
generally in the North to what it is with us in the West, owing to 
