from depleting the Firth. Further cases were taken by the Fishery Board and fines inflicted for illegal fishing, but for some reason or other these prosecutions were dropped. Eventually, in 1909, the Fishery Board succeeded in getting an Act of Parliament passed to prevent the landing or sale of fish within the United Kingdom from steamers which, within the two months prior to the landing or selling, had caught, or shipped, fish taken within the prohibited areas set out in the Act. These prohibited areas comprised the Moray Firth, the Firth of Clyde and the other extra-territorial waters of the coasts of Scotland and Ireland. The Grimsby-cum-Norway trawlers made several attempts to contravene the Act of Parliament, but the resolute attitude of the Customs officials soon convinced them that the game was not worth the candle. In effect, then, these extra-territorial waters are closed to British steam-trawlers and to foreign steam-trawlers who desire to land fish at British ports. They are, however, open to foreign steam-trawlers who intend to land the fish on the Continent; but whether any and if so what number of foreign steamers take advantage of this privilege does not appear.

Here, then, we have a definite policy pursued over a long period of years by a body constituted by statute for the protection and development of the fisheries of Scotland. The key-note of this policy is the insufficiency of the ordinary three-mile limit with a ten-mile line across the bays for the protection of the sea fisheries. This policy was endorsed by the trawlers themselves in the 1893-1903 period, when they were greatly concerned about the future of the North Sea; and it is only the discovery and the exploitation of distant fishing-grounds which, by relieving the pressure on the North Sea itself, has induced them to drop their agitation.

In Ireland the administration of the Act relating to the sea fisheries is also entrusted to a central authoritythe Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction for Ireland. This body has adopted a policy similar to that of the Scottish Fishery Board-a policy which has for its first axiom the inadequacy of the three-mile limit. Under the by-laws made by the Irish Department, steamtrawling is prohibited for the most part if not entirely within the three-mile limit off the Irish coast and in many

wide extra-territorial areas. It ought not to pass unmentioned that in Scotland and even more in Ireland the steam-trawling element does not form such an appreciable portion of the fishing industry as it does in England. For England and Wales the central authority is the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries, whose powers, however, are much more limited than those of either the Scottish or the Irish Boards. The Board itself is concerned with the collection of fishery statistics and (in recent years) the conduct of England's share of the international investigations into the fisheries of the North and neighbouring seas. The administration of the coastal fisheries is in the hands of various District Committees, who enforce by-laws after they have been approved by the Central Board. There are about a dozen of these District Committees, and they vary widely in their efficiency. On the one hand, there may be a large Committee with a superintendent and over thirty fishery officers, with a large policing steamer and an annual income of thousands of pounds, while on the other hand there are Committees with one fishery officer and an income of 2001. a year or less. Now it is obvious that, however much a Committee with an income of this kind may desire to protect or encourage the coastal fisheries, it is, for financial reasons alone, entirely helpless. The remedy is for the isolated Committees to amalgamate, as they are empowered or authorised to do under the Sea Fisheries Regulation Act of 1888, so that three or at the most four large Committees may be formed with the power and the means to carry out the regulations for the protection of the inshore fisheries. While the Scottish and Irish Central Departments have framed and carried out a definite policy for the protection of the fisheries, the English Board of Agriculture and Fisheries, on the contrary, seems to have had no initiative of any kind.

There is finally the alternative of keeping the territorial limits as defined by the present conventions, with an extension of the Scottish practice of closing arms of the sea which are definitely bounded by the territory of a single country. By the old common law of England bays of which one shore could reasonably be discerned from the other shore were considered to be inter fauces terrae, and offences committed thereon were tried at

common law. From many points of view there is much to be said for the adaptation of this idea to fishery purposes. Most of our inshore areas, such as Cardigan Bay or the Bristol Channel, have trawling-grounds which are demonstrably capable of being exhausted in a very short time by the depredations of steam-trawlers. The task of policing an area bounded by a straight line drawn between two definite and conspicuous objects (preferably lighthouses or lightships which would be visible by night) would be much simpler than the present work of patrolling a sinuous line following the coast at varying intervals from prominent landmarks. In actual practice the present territorial limit is, as regards England and Wales at any rate, either not policed at all or policed under considerable difficulties. Steam-trawlers fish with impunity right up to the limit line, and often, if there is any relaxation of vigilance on the part of the fishery officers, cross the line in order to make a profitable haul. The local Petty Sessional Benches are loath to convict in cases of infringement of the by-laws where the encroachment has been slight. Steam-trawlers are capable of moving with the trawl down at the rate of five miles an hour or more; and consequently, since the police vessels are well-known and are visible at some distance, it is difficult to overtake them before they have slipped outside the limits into the open sea. It follows that, in many cases, though the fishery officers are certain that the law has been infringed, proceedings cannot be taken to bring the trawlers into court owing to the difficulty of furnishing legal proof of the exact spot where the breach of the law occurred. In Scotland things are different. With a strong Fishery Board, uninfluenced by fluctuations of the political barometer, deaf to the clamour of the ignorant, and loyally supported by a staff of capable and energetic officials, the reports are a clear and illuminating guide to the progress of the fisheries of the nation, and the administration is a model to the rest of the world.

Art. 8.-THE BATTLESHIP AND ITS SATELLITES.

1. The Ship of the Line in Battle. By Admiral Sir Reginald Custance. Edinburgh and London: Blackwood, 1912. 2. The British Battle Fleet. By Fred T. Jane. London: Partridge, 1912.

3. The Evolution of the Submarine Boat, Mine and Torpedo. By Commander M. F. Sueter, R.N. Portsmouth:

Griffin, 1907.

4. The Navy League Annual. Edited by Alan H. Burgoyne, M.P. London: Murray, 1913.

5. The Naval Annual. Edited by Viscount Hythe. Portsmouth Griffin, 1912.

6. Essays and Criticisms. By the Military Correspondent of the Times.' London: Constable, 1911.

7. The Engineering of Ordnance. By Sir Trevor Dawson. The Gustave-Canet Lecture, Junior Institution of Engineers, 1909.

sea.'

THE first principle of naval warfare was practically taught to us when Offa, King of Mercia, built a fleet which deterred Charlemagne from invading England nearly twelve centuries ago. 'Offa bequeathed to England,' says the Saxon Chronicler,' this useful lesson that he who would be secure on land must be supreme at Victories which are too easily won fail in their lessons; the worst baptism of a fighting principle is a bloodless victory. We took centuries to see the need of naval force, and centuries more to understand that strength is one thing and the right use of it another. In quite recent years we have had two leaders of parties and many lesser critics condemning Nelson for being 'decoyed' by Villeneuve to the West Indies. Better than any other man, and in his chase of Villeneuve more than anywhere else, Nelson taught us the purpose of navies. In what he called 'the great Order,' he laid down that every idea of attack and defence has but one supreme object-the destruction of the enemy's fleets. This can only be done by offensively designed ships; and, had Pitt understood the elementary principles of naval warfare, he would never have attacked St Vincent for failing to build coast-defence gunboats. The Duke of Wellington was but a blind leader of the blind when he opposed a

railway from Portsmouth to London as dangerously facilitating an invasion, and urged a division of expenditure to the sedentary defences of the coasts. In our own day Lord Roberts, contemplating the defensive, h written that every day that passes brings some invention which lessens our position as an island Pow and narrows the already narrow seas environing Frederick the Great said that the English will stamped like wild horses before their own imaginations, and i this has a certain truth, the habit of mind we ban condemned is one doubly dangerous to our people When it is in the ascendant, the springs of leadership are poisoned with false doctrine and England is in peri from within.

It is the fascination of the defence which is the ruin of navies. We have had Royal Commissions which have considered the protection of our dockyards and coalingstations at vast expense without regarding the safety afforded by the offensive action of the Navy. We have had statesmen like Peel and Palmerston persuading people that 'steam had bridged the Channel.' Yet the offensive being the rôle of the strong, steam had really improved our position by freeing our navy from dependence wind, which limited speed and course and made the shore a dreaded danger. Broadly speaking, indeed, effect of every invention of capital importance in the sixty years has been to strengthen the predominant na Power, provided offensive warfare is kept steadily in the foreground. Had this been recognised, sailors might have been spared half their controversies and much loss of pres tige as experts. Only flabbiness of principle could lead to the construction of coast-defence vessels and battleships in which seven times as much weight was given to armout as to guns. It is from this point of view that we welcom the work Sir Reginald Custance has done in his lecture at the War College, which have now been republished under the title of The Ship of the Line in Battle.' E takes as his starting-point the battle of Sinope, Novembe 30, 1853, after which arose the great naval cry of the fifties, for God's sake keep out the shells.' In his cor cluding lecture he shows how something like the same ferment occurred after Tsushima over the 12-inch shells, or portmanteaux as they were christened by the