British fisheries; their administration and their problems. A short account of the origin and growth of British sea-fishery authorities and regulations

Front matter

Cornell University

Library

The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library.

Preface

In preparing this book I have tried to give such a reasonably short sketch of the present position -of sea-fisheries administration and research in the United Kingdom as might be of use to those whose public duties compel them to give some attention to the subject, as well as to the general student of the sea-fisheries of Great Britain and Ireland. It is obvious that, with this aim, certain limitations have had to be kept in mind. Thus, the salmon and fresh-water fisheries and the oyster industry form altogether special subjects, and there is, besides, an extensive literature in existence dealing with the condition of those fisheries. The natural history of the marine economic animals is another subject which is treated very briefly, but there are already several excellent works, such as those of Cunningham and M‘Intosh, which give very full accounts of this part of our subject. Finally, much more attention might have been devoted to the consideration of the methods of catching sea-fishes practised in Vv vi BRITISH FISHERIES

British seas; but this would require much more space than is consistent with the intention of the work.

In Part I., I have attempted such a summary of the development of modern legislation and fishery authorities as may be verified in any library containing a set of the Parliamentary papers published during the last forty years. Sea-fishery administration, in its modern sense, may be said to have begun in Great Britain in 1863 with the appointment of the Royal Commission of that year, and to go back further than that date would be to enter into a study interesting only to the antiquary. Part II. is a short account of those fundamental facts of marine natural history and oceanography, on the further study of which rational fishery regulation must be based, and of the special problems which at the present time confront modern fishery authorities.

Fishery regulations have three main objects : (1) to ensure that good order may be maintained among fishermen; (2) to secure the greatest possible yield from the fishing grounds at any time that is compatible with the upkeep of the fish supply from year to year; and (3) to give “fair play” to every class of fishermen. This latter aim is not clearly expressed in fishery statutes or by-laws, but it is none the less apparent to anyone who observes the operation of the enactments in force. It is very proper

PREFACE vil that the poorer classes of our fishermen should be encouraged as much as possible, for in no other section of the population of these islands are the qualities of originality, resourcefulness, and hardihood so highly developed. It is regrettable that present-day tendencies are in the opposite direction. Concentration and specialisation, it has been observed, are the keynotes of modern industrial developments in the fisheries as in everything else. The capitalisation of the industry, the formation of wealthy fishing companies with huge fleets, may, in some ways, be a source of national gratification, and may be the means of providing cheap and abundant food ; but the fact should not be overlooked that this end is incompatible, to some extent, with the maintenance of an increasing and comfortable fishing population. At the present time there is a danger that the small fishing village and fishing vessel, and the comfortable and easy-going coast population, characteristic of the immediate past, may by and by disappear, and that their place may be taken by overgrown fishing ports like Grimsby and Aberdeen, inhabited by fishermen whose industrial condition may soon approximate to that of the ordinary seaman and fireman of our merchant service. The skill and pluck of the British littoral population is apparently in danger of being exploited by the capitalist, and sacrificed to the desire for wealth on the one

Vili BRITISH FISHERIES hand, and to the modern craze for cheapness on the other. The protective systems of the beginning of the nineteenth century had for their object the encouragement of the poorer fishermen. Although these were, to a great extent, done away with by the /aissez-faire policy of the middle of the century, they have never entirely been abandoned, and one is glad to observe that the modern tendency is towards their revival. Many restrictions on methods of fishing, such as the practical exclusion of the steam fishing fleet from the territorial waters and bays of our coasts, have a differential effect, and encourage the small fishing boat at the expense of the larger; and if the maintenance of a numerous and comfortable fishing population is ai desirable a thing as the mere supply of cheap food, then restrictive legislation of this nature is to be welcomed.

“Experimental legislation” has been the rule in the past. That this should have failed is due to obvious causes, and one has to admit that for the mass of obsolete, futile, and injurious fishery laws both the fisherman and the administrator are to blame. The growth of our knowledge of the natural laws which govern the abundance of fish in the sea has been a slow process, and the legislators have not been patient enough to wait for a sufficient basis of observation on which to found their restrictions. Fishery authorities have not, as

PREFACE ix a rule, sought to employ investigators whose sole business it was to study the effect of the stringent regulations proposed by them ; and one finds that there are, even at the present day, few fishery restrictions which are based on a rational consideration of natural conditions in the sea. It is perhaps true that the scientific man who advises the administrator is often very much of an amateur, and that his manner of looking at legislative problems is rather academic; but it is no less true that unaided legislative interference with methods of fishing has, not infrequently, been both foolish and, at the least, unnecessary. There is at the present time a very obvious tendency, on the part of those who have to do with the control of the fisheries, to expect “ practical results” from the investigator in a very short time—and at a very cheap rate. Attentive study of the application of scientific research to fishery legislation will show anyone who cares to see it that the only way to ensure that the fisheries may by and by be administered in the best interests of the fisherman and the consumer, is to persevere slowly and patiently with the acquirement of scientific facts. No one who takes the trouble to make himself thoroughly acquainted with the results of sea-fishery legislation in the past can doubt that by this method alone can results of lasting value be obtained.

J. JOHNSTONE.

Liverpoo., June 1905.

VI.

THE FISHERIES STATUTES

LOCAL REGULATIONS

COST OF FISHERY ADMINISTRATION THE UNITED KINGDOM,

IMPORTS, EXPORTS, AND RE-EXPORTS OF

FISH

IgOI—2

IN

PAGE

Introduction

THE SITUATION IN 1903—METHODS AND VALUE OF THE FISHERIES

At the present time there are at least 27,000 vessels, manned by over go,000 fishermen, engaged in fishing from the ports of the United Kingdom. At any hour of the twenty-four, one-fourth of this enormous number of vessels and men may be on the seas, anywhere and everywhere round the British Isles, from Iceland on the north to the coasts of Portugal on the south. In the course of a twelvemonth they will land over goo,o0o tons of fish, worth about {£10,000,000. On every week-day throughout the year they will bring ashore some 3000 tons of fish, worth (to them) about £33,000; and during the next two or three days this enormous quantity of fish will have been distributed all over the country, or exported abroad; and the consumers will have paid over {100,000 for it—for the produce of a single day’s fishing in the fishing grounds about the British Isles.

xXV xvi BRITISH FISHERIES

These figures are.only an approximate statement of the real worth of the British sea-fishing industry ; and, though they may be subject to considerable qualification, they represent what is the minimum value of the industry. They are a bald and colourless summary of the value of a great national asset. Looked at in the pages of a Blue Book, they appear dry and repugnant, but the imaginative reader will see in them the evidence of an immense “ mine of wealth” ; of an incessant struggle to obtain Nature’s most grudged possessions; of the existence of a population whose value to the nation it is difficult to over-appreciate.

Every mile almost of the extensive coast-line of Great Britain and Ireland contributes its share of this fishing population. But the density: is not everywhere uniform, and there are remarkable differences in the value of the industry at the various parts. ‘The east coast of England and Scotland, adjoining the important fishing grounds of the North Sea, is, both absolutely and relatively, by far the most important fishing district. Then follow in order the west coasts of England and Scotland, the coasts of Ireland, and the south coast of England.

As I have indicated above, it is impossible to give, with accuracy, the exact number of men and vessels employed on the British coasts; and the exact amount and value of the fish landed is also very imperfectly known. Systems for the collec-

INTRODUCTION XVil tion of these data are in existence in each of the divisions of the United Kingdom, but while the statistical account of the fisheries of Scotland is very complete, that for England and Ireland furnishes only an approximate idea of the extent of the industry, and the figures must be taken as representing minimum values.

I give here a short summary of the principal data relating to the men, matériel, and value of the British fisheries. The data are for the year

1903 :—’*

I. VessEts EMPLoveD IN FISHING

England and Wales

Steam trawlers . ‘ : z : » Ti4e Other steam fishing vessels ' « Are 1st class (15 tons and upwards) sailing vessels. 1747 and class (under 15 tons) sailing vessels. » 370%

3rd class fishing vessels (navigated by oars only) . 2764

Total number of English fishing vessels . 9721

Scotland Steam trawlers : : ‘ : : 280 Other steam fishing vessels . 1, 156 Sailing fishing vessels. : : : ~ BO,e72

Total number of Scottish fishing vessels . 11,008

1See—for England—Axnual. Report of Proceedings under Sea- Fisheries Acts for 1903 ; for Scotland—7Zwenty-second Annual Report of the Fishery Board, Part 1.; for Ireland—Report on the Sea and

Inland Fisheries of Ireland for 1903. b

XViil BRITISH FISHERIES

Ireland Steam trawlers . ; ‘ 12 Ist class (15 tons and upwards) sailing ‘vessels. 364 and class (under 15 tons) sailing vessels. 2939

3rd class fishing vessels (navigated by oars only) . 2.920

Total number of Irish fishing vessels ~ 6235

II. Persons Emptovep IN CoNNECTION WITH THE SEA-FISHERIES

England and Wales Regular fishermen . : ‘ ‘ 4,071 Persons occasionally employed . : : - 754.68 Total . : . F ; : - 41,539 Scotland Fishermen and boys : : : , . 36,162 Fishmongers and hawkers : i : ~ S835 Curers, coopers, packers . ‘ 5 , - 19,981 Manufacturers of boats, nets, etc. . ‘ + A, 194 Other persons employed . ; : , . 18,401 Total persons employed ; é - 84,553 Ireland Fishermen. : : : : ‘ . 24,206 Boys. : z ‘ . , : : 527

Total .

INTRODUCTION

Xix

III. AmMounT anp VaLve or THE Fish LANDED

Total wet fish .

Shell-fish

Total .

Herrings

Other sea-fish

Shell-fish

Total .

Mackerel .

Other sea-fish Shell-fish .

Total

IV. Tue Capirat INVEsTED

It is difficult or impossible to obtain this information, except in the case of Scotland. No official returns of the value of the vessels and gear are given for England or Ireland.

XX BRITISH FISHERIES

Scotland Steam fishing vessels ‘ ; , - £155725338 Sailing vessels . , : : : 9945552 Fishing gear, nets (lines, etc. y-« P . 881,278 Total value . , i . £35448,168

These figures give a very bald idea as to the importance of the fisheries in Great Britain, but the reader must be content with them, and _ his imagination, stimulated by their magnitude, will more easily grasp the importance and the great value of the national asset represented by the sea-fisheries of the country. In comparing the three divisions of the United Kingdom he must, however, bear many things in mind.

The total number of vessels and persons engaged in the fisheries in each country does not give a quite correct idea of the respective values of the fisheries. Thus, the number of vessels and men employed in Scotland, and still more in Ireland, is much greater in proportion to the value of the fish landed than in England. This is because the sea-fisheries of England are pre-eminently trawl fisheries, carried out by large and powerful steam trawlers, which, for the number of men employed and for their own numbers, are much more efficient than sailing boats. In England, too, the fish landed are relatively more valuable than in Scotland ; the flat fishes—soles, plaice, turbot, etc. —which, with cod and haddock, form the great

{NTRODUCTION xxi bulk of the fish landed in England, are more valuable than the herring, which is ¢he fish in Scotland. A truer idea of the value of the Scottish fisheries is, however, obtained if the value of the fish sold fresh in the neighbourhood where they are landed, and the value of the fish cured for transport, are considered. Thus, the value of such fish in Scotland for the year 1903 was £1,065,040, while the value of all fish cured for transport at home or abroad was (2,341,928 ; and in addition to the fish represented by these values, a considerable portion is carried away fresh by rail.

The number of persons employed does not bear a similar proportion to the value of the fish landed in each country. This is due to the causes indicated above—the nature and efficiency of the vessels and gear employed by them. But it is also due, in the case of Ireland notably, to the fact that the fisherman there is, in very many cases, a person who combines some other occupation, farming usually, with that of fishing, and to that extent he is to be regarded as a fraction of a fisherman, rather than as a unit, as I have considered him to be in the above tabular statements.

We have now to consider the methods employed by these fishermen for the capture of the fish they bring to the market. There is no industry in which the essentials of the methods employed have changed so little as in sea-fishing. From time

XXil BRITISH FISHERIES immemorial fishermen have employed apparatus which to-day may be seen in use on our coasts. It is easy to trace the causes of the few changes in the nature of the methods, and of the still greater change in the magnitude of the industry. Up to the time of railways, there was no stimulus to change; the difficulty of transport of such a perishable article as fish, and the slow growth of the population, kept the industry within narrow limits. Fish were caught for consumption by the fishing population itself, and for sale or exchange in the narrow strip of coast country within easy access of the sea. Fishing was therefore confined to a somewhat narrow zone of sea round the coast. But railway transport increased the market enormously, and with the increased demand larger boats began to be employed. Finally, steam power was introduced into the fishing vessels themselves, and ice was used to preserve the catches of fish made. These changes increased enormously the area of exploitation, and the quantity of the catch.

I can give here only a very summary account of the various methods employed in sea-fishing, and such an account will not relieve the conscientious reader of the necessity for consulting other sources of information on this part of our subject... One

1 A complete account of the methods of fishing practised round the coasts of the United Kingdom has yet to be written. The following works should, however, be consulted :—

E. W. H. Holdsworth, Deep-sea Fishing and Fishing Boats.

INTRODUCTION XXxill can classify fishermen in various ways; it is convenient at times to divide them into “ inshore ”’ or “longshore” men: these are such as work in small boats and mostly within the territorial limits. Opposed to them are the “offshore” or “ deep-sea’ fishermen, whose area I have already indicated. For our present purpose it is best to consider them as “trawlers,” “liners,” “seiners,” ‘ drift-net fishermen,” “‘shrimpers,” and so on, according to the method employed by them, and the kind of fish sought for. Fishermen are now to a great extent specialists ; but we may still find places where the residents employ almost every method in turn, according to season and opportunity. Trawling.—By far the greatest quantity of fish landed at British ports is caught by the method of trawling. This mode of fishing is of great antiquity, and it is difficult to determine where it was first commonly employed. The older form of trawl-net is a triangular flat bag or purse of netting, the mouth of which is from 20 to 50 feet wide, and the length about 40 to 100 feet. This bag is attached by its mouth to a beam of wood, which at either end is fixed to a stirrup-shaped iron frame—

London, Ed. Stanford, 1874. This work is rather old, but is, however, still very valuable.

E. W. L. Holt, Grimsby Trawl Fishery and Destruction of Immature Fish, Plymouth, Marine Biological Association, 1895.

J. W. Collins, Ze Beam-trawl Industry of Great Britain, with Notes on Beam-trawling in other European Countries, etc. ‘‘ Bulletin U.S. Fish Commission” for 1887 (1889), pp. 289-407.

XXIV BRITISH FISHERIES the “‘head”” ; and the beam forms the upper margin of the mouth of the trawl. The lower margin is formed by the “foot-rope,” which is fastened at each end to the heads, and to which the lower portion of the net is attached. The foot-rope is not stretched tightly between the heads, but curves back in a wide bight behind the beam. When fishing the whole contrivance is dragged along the sea-bottom by two ropes—the “‘ bridles,” one attached to either head, which meet at the “shackle.” The trawl-rope or “warp” is attached to the shackle ; it may be 150 or even 200 fathoms in length ; it is made fast on the deck of the vessel in various ways, depending on the size of the latter and on the size of the trawl.

Only such fishes as live on the sea-bottom, or swim about within a foot or two from there, can be caught by the trawl, as the heads keep the beam from two to four feet off the ground. The lower edges of the heads and the foot-rope drag along on the ground, and the scraping action - of the latter stirs up any fish resting there or partially buried in the mud or sand, and they are swept into the net by the onward motion of the latter. Anything else lying on the sea-bottom, sea-weed, invertebrate animals, stones and loose débris, even old anchors, may be swept into the net and find their way back to its apex. When the net has been hauled for a variable time—one to six hours—it is brought up on

INTRODUCTION XXV deck—very laboriously if the vessel is without steam power; the beam and foot-rope are made fast to the rail, and the remainder of the net is gathered in by hand; finally the contracted apex or “cod end,” into which the whole catch has been gathered, is brought on board and its end untied, and the contents allowed to fall on deck. The trawl is once more “shot,” and while it is being dragged the fish are separated out, gutted, packed into boxes, and put away with ice in the fish-hold ; the miscellaneous mass of rubbish and unmarketable fishes is then thrown overboard.

I have described such a trawl as was employed previous to about 1893; since then the beam-trawl has entirely disappeared from steam trawling vessels, and has been replaced by the “ otter board” trawl. In this apparatus the net and foot-rope are similar to those in the older form, but the beam is replaced by a strong rope—the “‘ head line,” which may be over 100 feet in length. It is attached to two heavy wooden boards shod with iron, and nearly the size of ordinary doors, to which the trawl warps are attached in such a way that the board drags on the ground by one of its long edges, and its surface is set at an angle to the direction in which the net is being dragged. This keeps the mouth of the net stretched open in the same way as in the beam-trawl. The otter-trawl is hauled by two warps instead of one, as in the beam-trawl. It is much

XXVvi BRITISH FISHERIES more efficient than the beam-trawl, but it is only suitable for the larger boats.

Lining.—A considerable proportion of the deep-sea fishes landed is, however, caught by means of “long lines.’ In some form or other this is, of course, the most ancient method of fishing. A typical long line may be as much as seven miles in length, and is made up of a number of pieces. At intervals of about a fathom, pieces of line two or three feet long—the “snoods,” which carry hooks—are attached, and a long line carried by a deep-sea “liner” may carry seven thousand hooks. Ropes and buoys mark the position of the line as it lies on the bottom, one buoy being situated at each end of the line, and one at each intermediate mile. The line is “shot” in the evening and fished at morning. The hooks are baited principally with whelks or mussels.

Drift-netting —Trawling and lining are carried on at any depth down to about a hundred fathoms, and anywhere and everywhere almost round the British Isles from Iceland to the Bay of Biscay. It will be evident to the reader that only such fish—soles, turbot, plaice, halibut, cod, ling, and haddock, etc.—as lie at the bottom will be taken by either method. There is, however, an abundant class of fishes, living at any depth from the surface to the bottom, for the capture of which neither of the above methods is applicable, and

INTRODUCTION XXVIi for which “drift-netting’? must be employed. Drift-nets are chiefly used for the capture of herring, mackerel, and pilchards. A “train” or “fleet” of herring nets may be as much as two miles long and over ten yards in depth. It is supported on a line carrying cork floats, which is again attached to ropes and buoys which support the net at a variable distance from the surface. The whole contrivance floats or drifts with the tide as a vertical wall of netting which the herring shoal encounters. The fish striking the net penetrates the mesh of the latter, and, if it is a small fish, passes through. But if it is of a suitable size, its head slips through, and the increasing diameter of its body fixes or “‘ meshes ”’ it, in which position it is taken when the net is hauled. The size of the mesh of a drift-net will, of course, vary with the kind of fish it is designed to catch. A herring net has generally about thirty-three to thirty-six meshes to the yard, a pilchard net forty-five or more, and a mackerel net from twenty-five to twenty-eight. Fishing for all these fishes is carried on at a variable distance from shore, or, it may be, in bays or estuaries.

Seining. — By a simple modification the drift-net becomes converted into the “seine” and “draw-net.” The seine is an ancient form of fishing implement, and it resembles generally a drift-net, but the manner of using it is very

XXVill BRITISH FISHERIES different. At sea it is employed by two boats, which carry the net between them. When the latter is to be “shot,” the boats separate and pull away from each other, describing a circle, and putting the net overboard as they go. The latter is thus put into the water in the form of a circular vertical wall of netting, which surrounds the shoal of fish. The ends are united, and the net as it now stands is slowly towed shorewards till the bottom touches ground, and the fish are secure. They are then removed from the larger seine by a special mode of using a small seine. Sometimes the seine is used from the shore; one end is retained there, while a boat, with the other, pulls out to sea and describes a semicircle, “shooting ”’ the net as it goes. The latter, with its enclosed fish, is then hauled on shore.

Inshore Fishing —This latter method of seine-netting brings us to the consideration of the methods of the inshore or longshore men. Many of these are seiners, working as described above. Then there are comparatively small sailing boats using beam-trawls in the method indicated, but in relatively shallow water and within the three-mile territorial limit. Sea-fish are also largely taken round the British coasts by various kinds of “fixed engines.” Such fixed engines, so called in contradistinction to the movable fishing engines — such as trawls — are fishing weirs, stake nets, trammel nets, and various other forms

INTRODUCTION XXixX of apparatus. The ¢ramme/ net is a most attractive engine, which is, however, relatively uncommon. Three nets are fastened together at top, bottom, and ends; they are only a little distance apart. This triple net is anchored to the bottom, the foot being weighted, and the top or “back”? buoyed, so that it stands upright as a vertical wall of netting. The peculiarity of the trammel is that the middle member of the triple net has a narrow mesh, while the two outer ones have very wide meshes, and are so set that the meshes are exactly opposite each other; the middle narrow-meshed net is longer and wider than the two external ones, so that it is gathered up in slack folds. When a fish strikes the net it easily passes through the mesh of the outer net, but, striking against the restricted mesh of the middle net, it gathers this up and forces it through the opposing mesh of the outside net on the opposite side. The fish is thus in a pocket, in which it is hopelessly “ trammelled.”’

The stake net is simply a vertical wall of netting of variable length supported on wooden stakes. It is set on the ground at low water, and so arranged that the tidal stream runs through it at right angles to its length ; at next low water after it is set, it is visited and the enmeshed fish removed. It has a number of forms.

Fishing weirs are common on the coast of Wales, and are an easy and safe (albeit destructive to re BRITISH FISHERIES young unmarketable fishes) method of fishing which commends itself to the Welsh maritime population.

Shell-fisheries. — But the shell-fisheries are by far the most prolific of the inshore section of the industry. The oyster, shrimp, and prawn fisheries are carried on from sailing boats. For shrimps and prawns a small trawl-net is used, in which the meshes are about half an inch square; such a net may also be used in shallow water from a horse and cart worked by a “ farmer-fisherman.” Such methods of fishing necessarily involve the destruction of an enormous number of small fishes of all kinds, which are nearly always found in association with shrimps.

Oysters are taken by a dredge, which is practically a small trawl, except that the mouth of the net is kept open by an iron frame, and the meshes are made of strong cord or iron rings.

Crabs and Jodsters are taken in “pots” or “creels” — wicker-work traps baited with fragments of fresh or stinking fish ; they are moored at the sea-bottom in suitable places, and “ fished ” after an interval.

Lastly, mussels, cockles, and periwinkles are mostly collected by hand, though in places the former molluscs are dredged or brought up by means of a large rake. Whelks may be taken by hand or in baited traps. ‘These animals are, however, used almost entirely as bait for long lines.

INTRODUCTION XXX1

These are the most common methods of taking sea-fish. To describe fully every variation of these and the other less common modes of fishing would take too much space for a work of this nature. ‘The above account may, however, give the reader such information as will enable him to follow with ease discussions in which the action of the various apparatus is dealt with.

PART I

THE DEVELOPMENT OF MODERN LEGISLATION

‘Every legislative restriction means the creation of a new offence. In the case of fishery, it means that a simple man of the people, earning a scanty livelihood by hard toil, shall be liable to fine and imprisonment for doing that which he and his fathers before him have, up to that time, been free to do.

“If the general interest clearly requires that this burden should be put upon the fishermen—well and good. But if it does not—if indeed there is any doubt about the matter, I think that the man who made the unnecessary law deserves a heavier punishment than the man who breaks it.” (Hux.ey, “Inaugural Address,” /uternational Fisheries Exhibition (London) Literature, 1883.)