sighted – a process which is often difficult or impossible. Moreover, owing to the caste-feeling between the two trades, the master of a trawler has seldom had any experience of line or net fishing, and his crew never. They are thus less able to judge the probable position of this kind of gear, and the best means of avoiding damage. Finally, when we remember that all the three methods of fishing are carried on largely in the dark or dusk, we shall cease to be surprised that collision between them has been frequent, and that much bad blood has resulted therefrom.
Indeed for many years there have been loud complaints made by the fishermen, not only as to interference with, and injury to, the nets and lines, on the part of the trawlers, but also as to the harmful effect of trawling upon the fish-supply.
Now, although there is no necessary connection between these two charges, it will be found that, in the history of the trawling question, they always appear together; and that, in regions where the physical collision between fishermen and trawlers is slight, the injurious effects of trawling on the fish-supply do not strike the fishermen so forcibly. It is not indeed surprising that, an ill feeling having been once established by one particular grievance, all other grievances that arise should be attributed to the same cause, especially in the absence of other satisfactory explanations for their existence. Nothing is really more difficult to account for than a bad fishing season occurring after a good one; but to a fisherman, who has for some time past looked upon steam-trawler X as the root of all evil, the cause is ready to hand.
We find, accordingly, that such complaints have always existed,
even in the days when trawling was practised to a far less extent than at present. For instance, in 1862, representations were made by the St Monance men against trawling in the Traith Hole off the mouth of the Firth of Forth; and the Scottish Fishery Board were induced to order a suspension of trawling on that ground. Again, in 1866 and 1878, when Commissions were appointed to investigate the whole question of the state of the sea-fisheries of the United Kingdom, the fishermen of the north-east coast complained of a general decrease of fish, but especially of haddock, which they attributed entirely to the trawlers. Both these Commissions, however, came to the conclusion that no decrease was visible in the supply of fish on our coasts, and that no injurious effects were to be apprehended from an unrestricted use of the beam-trawl.
In the Report of the Commissioners of 1878, the following passage occurs: –
"Inshore-trawling has been practised more or less for a great many years. The practice has undoubtedly increased of late months in the North Sea. The cause of its increase is so singular that it is worth explaining. It appears almost paradoxical to assert that the stagnation of trade has led to a revolution in fishing; but paradoxical as the statement may seem, it is nevertheless true. The steam-tugs plying at the mouth of the Tyne and the Wear have been thrown out of employ by slack trade. Their masters, despairing of obtaining other profitable work for them, have placed trawls on board of them, and have sent them out to fish. But the tugs are hardly fitted to fish the distant grounds in the North Sea to which the trawling fleet usually repair. They are compelled, therefore, if they trawl at all, to trawl on the inshore grounds, on which the hook-and-line men have hitherto enjoyed a practical monopoly. In many cases, without the assistance
