the excessive labour, especially in getting to the grounds and in hauling aboard drift-nets and long lines, as well as by adding a mechanical interest which appeals to youth, motors undoubtedly attract young men to the work. Where they have come into use, the fishermen say they would rather lose their boat than their engine. The process of conversion is always the same. At first, motors are regarded as useless, at least for the particular fishery in question; then one or two men try them, often none too successfully; more men try; the technique of motors for the particular fishery is mastered; and soon the best men have them. Finally crews for non-motor boats become hard to get, and in a wonderfully short time the whole fleet is converted to motor power. It is mainly the coming of the marine motor which makes the present seem a specially favourable time for initiating a revival of the inshore fisheries.

Not, of course, that motors are everything, or even the one thing needful. Many other matters urgently need tackling if the decline is to be changed to development. It must be acknowledged that fisheries are a rather distressful, not to say squabblesome, industry. In lucky periods they are apt to undergo an expansion which leads to distress during lean years. One sort of fishing, especially trawling, interferes with other sorts. And the controversy as to how far the fishing grounds are being depleted, who or what is responsible for the depletion, and how to prevent it, has always been very keen. Besides scores of questions in the House, fisheries have been the subject of a good many Government Inquiries, and of several Bills and Acts. Since the Devon and Cornwall Inquiry of 1912-13 and the Departmental Committee of 1913-14 covered the whole of the English and Welsh coast, previous Inquiries need not here be dealt with, except to remark that the important recommendations of the Departmental Committee in respect of undersized fish, simplification of by-laws, and shell-fish culture were anticipated by the House of Lords Committee of 1904 and even the Commissioners of 1866. The latter, among whom was Huxley, remarked:

'Should it [depletion of the fishing grounds] ever be satisfactorily proved to have arisen, we conceive that the best

remedial measure would be to place a restriction upon the size of the fish permitted to be brought ashore, and to subject the possessor of fish below a certain specified size to penalties; but to avoid interfering with the implements of fishermen, or with their methods of fishing. For the present we advise that all Acts of Parliament which profess to regulate or restrict the modes of fishing pursued in-shore be repealed. . . .

How little that advice was taken by a generation of prohibitory persons, and with what bad results, the Report of the Departmental Committee shows.

Fisheries have been the ugly duckling, the kicked dogfish, of Whitehall. Formerly attended to by Salmon Inspectors of the Home Office, they were transferred, in 1886, to a Fisheries Department of the Board of Trade. In 1898 a joint Fisheries and Harbour Department of the Board of Trade was formed; but in 1903 the fisheries were again transferred, becoming a division of the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries, but leaving fishery harbours behind them with the Harbour Department of the Board of Trade. The Departmental Committee left no doubt in its Report of its opinion that the Central-Department is still inadequately equipped-in status, funds, staff and empowering legislation-for dealing with the large and complex fishery interests under its charge.

Locally, the fisheries are administered, within the eleven districts into which the coast is at present divided, by Sea Fisheries Committees, formed under the Sea Fisheries Regulation Act of 1888, and in certain estuaries by local bodies having Sea Fisheries powers. Such Committees are made up of two classes of members: (1) those appointed by local authorities contributing funds, and (2) fishery members. The latter, in turn, consist of a representative from each Salmon Board within the District, and of fishery members proper, appointed by the Central Department to represent the fishing interests of the District. As there is no power to pay the expenses, let alone for the loss of time, of fishermen members, men willing to accept appointment are difficult to find, and it is still more difficult for them to attend regularly. In consequence, fishermen are either unrepresented, or are represented by outsiders interested and

willing to serve, or by their fish merchants. The last are usually among the most capable and energetic of the members, but naturally they cannot be expected to work for reform in the methods of fish trading. On every Committee the practical sea fishery members are in a minority. Under various Acts, the Committees have power to regulate inshore fishing in a variety of ways -methods, gear, season, size of shellfish allowed to be taken-but before by-laws can become operative, they must be confirmed by the Central Department. The Central Department can confirm or reject, but it cannot initiate. It can only suggest, and leave the by-law to be brought up again. A more obstructive process for getting anything done quickly would be hard to invent.

For, although the Committees have unquestionably done a great deal of hard work, they themselves suffer from certain fundamental defects not their fault, but imposed upon them. (1) They are an example of spurious decentralisation; they are neither representative of, nor are they elected by, or responsible to, the interests they administer. (2) Their power extends only to the three-mile limit of territorial waters; that is to say, a steam trawler may scrape up hundredweights of immature fish 31 miles out, while the inshore fisherman, for the protection of the few small fish he can catch, may be prevented from trawling at all with motor power just inside the line; and he has, therefore, to bear the brunt of by-laws intended to improve fishing as a whole. (3) With one exception-the Lancashire and Western Committee-their funds are insufficient for enforcing properly their own by-laws, to say nothing of carrying out constructive work, the scientific research necessary for effective regulation, or the legal defence of fishing rights and facilities. (4) Meeting quarterly, at some railway centre the least inconvenient for the bad coastal communications of the country, the Committees are very remote from the men who have to earn their living on the sea and from the rapid fluctuations of the industry.

It is easy to see that on such Committees the members who say, 'Something's wrong, let's prohibit something!', and who produce a neat little by-law, all ready for adoption, are bound to gain the upper hand of members who want to work out constructive schemes, which

needs must be hazy to begin with, and which in any case can't be paid for. And, in fact, the coast is covered with an amazing network of by-laws, dissimilar and of unproven efficacy. Naturally, the inshore fisherman resents such interference by outsiders, however wellintentioned, with his fishing and grounds, his livelihood. 'What do 'em do for me,' he too often says, 'except try to prevent a fellow from earning his living?' The Departmental Committee, whilst recognising fully the difficulties under which the Committees labour, and 'the keenest interest and the most intelligent devotion of a few sympathetic members,' was 'convinced that there are very serious drawbacks in the present system, which in our opinion fails either to stimulate local enterprise or to foster intimate relations between the fishermen and the Fishery Authority.'

If the Sea Fisheries Committees have concerned themselves chiefly with a maze of prohibitive by-laws, it must be recollected in their favour-in addition to the defects of their composition and representationthat the Act is father to the by-law, and that a repressive cast was inevitably given to their work by the Sea Fisheries Regulation Acts of 1888 to 1894. Parliament itself seems to have regarded the fisheries as a freegrowing tree, only needing to be pruned to flourish-a view which may have been true of the great steam ports, but was certainly untrue of the smaller fisheries. It empowered the Committees to 'regulate' the fisheries with by-laws and penalties, yet failed to provide them with funds for enforcing even such by-laws as are really necessary, let alone for carrying out constructive schemes. The one constructive provision of the Sea Fisheries Acts (1868-84)-relating to the better cultivation of shellfishprovided for the establishment of shellfish beds by means of Orders too expensive for fishermen to obtain !

Not until the Development Act of 1909 was financial provision made for the development of fisheries, as opposed to their regulation or administration; and it was out of an application to the Development Fund that the Devon and Cornwall Report arose. Grants were being made from the Fund for fishing harbours. The fishermen of Looe in S.E. Cornwall were converting their fleet to motor power, but the drift ports of West

Cornwall, owing largely to a succession of bad years and the competition of steam mackerel drifters from the East Coast, were in a state of great distress. And in Devon the smaller fisheries, at all events, had been suffering a steady decline.' The Devon and Cornwall Local Committees, seeing with admirable foresight that motors were bound to come, and might help their fisheries, joined hands in applying, early in 1912, for grants of 10,000l. each, for making loans to fishermen to instal motors in their boats. After considerable discussion and recrimination, and doubts as to whether Development money could legally be used for direct loans to individual fishermen, a small Committee of Inquiry was sent West. It visited practically every fishing port and village in the two counties, taking special care to learn the views of fishermen themselves. The Report, which appeared early in 1913, did not support the original schemes.

'Indeed, it is not impossible that fishing ports equipped with motor power by means of State aid might intensify the pressure that at present is exercised by commercial steam competition on neighbouring ports, and notably on the smaller inshore fishing stations. There is, too, the difficulty of selecting the individual fishermen, the pull of ports having preponderant or more active representation on the Committees, and a grave risk of patronage or favouritism. Though we have sought every suitable opportunity of informing ourselves on these points, we do not yet understand how it is proposed, under the scheme we have been invited to review, to proceed with the exceedingly delicate task of allotting the funds that may be applied for; and we must needs say that in regard to these same points-the most difficult parts of the matter in actual working-the schemes themselves are more than a little vague. .. We are persuaded that, in any scheme of State-aided credit, provision must be made for the close cooperation of the fishermen themselves in carrying out the scheme.'

The Committee, therefore, recommended the foundation of fishermen's credit banks, which may be described briefly as co-operative societies for combining the small credit of all the members in order to borrow money for re-lending to those members who want loans—a method of turning character into security and credit into cash, of making financial bricks out of men of straw.

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