it has been doing of recent years, the symptoms already evident at Aberdeen, St Andrews, and Scarborough should not spread.
It is, however, with "exhaustion" as with disturbance. It is not the trawlers only who "exhaust." Other methods of fishing play their part in the process. Now, in the Scotch districts between the Moray Firth and Eyemouth, first-class fishing-boats have increased since 1881 by 102, and second-class boats by 29. A few years ago there were no steam-trawlers in the same region, but; in 1883 their number is returned at about 47. Although no similar returns are published for England, there is probably a still greater increase in the fishing-boats of all kinds built in the ports of that country. Nor is this all. An immense development has taken place of late years in fishing apparatus of all kinds, and more effective methods for its use have come into vogue. Both nets and lines have increased in size, and are made of better material; steam-winches have been introduced on board the trawlers; and the use of ice and carrying steamers enables boats to go farther to sea, and to remain continuously at work for long periods. Steam line-fishing vessels have already been tried, and found to answer in the Tyne; and there is every probability that this class of vessel will generally be adopted. Thus, if the causes that have already on several grounds sensibly diminished the quantity of fish, continue to multiply and become more powerful, there is every reason to think that "exhaustion" may appear in other places. Nor are we without some slight indications that actually point to some such result.
At the commencement of their inquiry the Commissioners issued a series of questions to all the Coast-guard officers of the United Kingdom, requesting information as to the condition of the inshore fisheries, and the methods of fishing employed in each district. In fifty-two districts out of eighty-five there was said to be a falling off in the takes of fish; and in forty-five of these districts trawling in some shape was said to be carried on. Questions of the like import were also sent to the Governments of countries whose territories are situated on the coasts of the North Sea. In Denmark, Holland, and Germany there is an alleged decrease in the inshore fishing. In the two latter countries trawling is carried on, though by sailing-vessels only. Finally, in a table given in the Appendix to the Commissioners' Report, giving the state of the inshore fishing in Scotch fishery districts where trawling is not carried on, or only to a slight extent, no decrease of the takes is returned except in four cases.
These facts, so far as they are trustworthy, point to the conclusion that trawling in the narrow waters and on the smaller banks of our inshore fisheries is beginning to make itself felt, possibly as a large and effective factor in our system of fishing, possibly as part of that continuous disturbance that may be driving fish everywhere into the deeper waters. The other causes that produce variation in the fish-supply would, of course, produce their effects whether trawling existed or not. But it seems clear, at any rate, that trawling and greater or less falling off of the fish-supply do coexist in many places, and that the more trawlers there are, the more the fish fall off, – the process being quickened by the superior efficacy of the apparatus in the case of steam-trawling. Of course it may be said that the evil will cure itself, for that as soon
