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Lancashire Sea Fisheries 


A Lecture 


DELIVERED IN THE CHapwick MusgEuM, Botton, 


May 24TH, 1899. 


BY 


CHARLES L. JACKSON, 


Member of the Institute of Civil Engineers ; Fellow of the Linnean Society ; 
Fellow of Royal Microscopical Society; President of 
the Bolton Microscopical Society ; 


For Fifteen Years Honorary Naturalist Director of the Southport Aquarium. 


MANCHESTER: 
ABEL HEYWOOD AND SON, 56 AND 58 OLDHAM STREET. 
LONDON : 
SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, AND Co., LIMITED. 
1899. 


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TO MY OLD AND VALUED FRIEND, 


ABRAHAM BURROWS, Esa., 


JUSTICE OF THE PEACE FOR THE COUNTY OF LANCASTER, 
AND LATE ALDERMAN OF THE COUNTY COUNCIL OF LANCASHIRE, 
THIS LITTLE PAMPHLET IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED, 
PARTLY ON ACCOUNT OF OUR VERY LONG FRIENDSHIP, BUT 
ESPECIALLY IN MEMORY OF THE EFFORTS HE MADE 
EIGHT OR TEN YEARS SINCE TO OBTAIN A FAIR HEARING 
FOR THE FACTS AND A FAIR CONSIDERATION 


FOR THE CONCLUSIONS EMBODIED IN THE FOLLOWING PAGES. 


PeOtbnOho fr hE rACE. 


“Or the making of many books there is no end.” It is 
customary, and in many cases very advisable, that anyone 
who rushes into print should give the public his reasons for 
so doing. In my case I do so. Firstly, because a strong 
wish has been expressed that I should publish the lecture I 
gave under the auspices of the Bolton Corporation at the 
Chadwick Museum, and I promised to do so, but it seemed 
to me it would be well, even while retaining the lecture 
form, to add from my many notes a considerable number of 
facts suppressed during the lecture, owing to want of time, 
which I think go far to prove my contentions. I was 
further induced to do this by the newspaper reports, in 
which the lecture was cut down to suit space. Proofs were 
eliminated, and merely the assertions printed. Secondly, 
because during the time I conducted the Southport Aqua- 
rium I had opportunities which are not likely soon to occur 
again of making many interesting experiments. Those 
relating to fish culture are, I venture to think, of some 
importance. They are at present recorded in all sorts of 


places—Blue Books, Land and Water, local papers, &c., and 


V1. 

I think it well to bring the most important into one collec- 
tion. Whatever may be thought of my conclusions, I leave 
these observations as my contribution to the great fishery 
question. 

In regard to the scientific staff mentioned, I trust it will 
be understood that my remarks and strictures are entirely 
made in their Pickwickian or Fishery sense, and with- 
out personality. I have not the honour of knowing any 
of the gentlemen personally, and have no doubt they 
are, as most Englishmen are, very estimable men in private 
life, when not mounted on their scientific hobby-horse and 
riding the poor fishermen to death; but in their public 
capacity I think they furnish one additional proof of the 
wisdom of our great poet when he exclaims, ‘‘ Proud man 
drest in a little brief authority, most ignorant of what he’s 
most assured, plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven 
as make the angels weep.” 

Since delivering this lecture-:my attention has been called 
by Mr. Midgely, Curator of the Chadwick Museum, Bolton, 
to Professor McIntosh’s book on the subject, just published, 
and entitled, ‘‘The Resources of the Sea.’ Professor 
McIntosh is a far more able man than I am. He isa 
recognised authority on these questions, and has devoted his 
life to scientific studies, while I, busily occupied in my own 
onerous profession as an engineer, have only been able to 


devote my leisure hours to the subject. I earnestly hope 


Vil. 


that those responsible for the present state of things will 
carefully read and consider the Professor’s volume, and 
especially the concluding pages, in which he sums up the 
case. 

It is hard to fight against what have now become vested 
interests, but justice and common sense must prevail, and in 
time the present advisers of the County Council will be glad 
for the public to forget the cruelty and hardship they have 
inflicted on a hard-working and deserving class by their 


legislation in the dark. 


Moorfield, Bolton. 


THE LANCASHIRE SEA PISHERIES. — 


Mr.: CHAIRMAN, LADIES- AND GENTLEMEN, 

It may strike many people as rather curious that an 
engineer in an inland town should be asked to open a 
Fisheries Exhibition—the two things at first’ sight seeming 
somewhat incongruous. However, when they invited me, 
the Corporation did so on the ground that they believed I 
was the only-man in the district who knew anything about 
our fisheries. This is not quite correct; but it certainly is 
to be regretted that more people do not give attention to 
the subject, and are not aware of the harm that is being 
done with the intention of increasing our fish supply. 

I am at first sight rather in an invidious position to- 
night, because I feel very strongly indeed, -with the fisher- 
men along the Lancashire coast, that they are being harassed 
and ill-treated by the group of scientists who have obtained 
possession of the ears of the County Council, and are re- 
gulating the fisheries according to their ideas. 

When I was asked to open the Exhibition, I explained 


my views to- the authorities, and told them they put me in 


B 


2 


rather a peculiar position, for it was customary at these ex- 
hibitions for the persons who opened them to praise every- 
thing. They pointed out to me, however, that this case was 
somewhat different, because the Committee who have sent 
down the Exhibition have sent it to illustrate what they are 
doing, how they are spending the public money (now 
amounting to a very large sum, about £3,000 per annum), 
and to justify their action in treating the fishermen in the 
manner in which they are doing; and therefore it was per- 
fectly fair, as they were paid by the people, that the people 
should criticise their action, if they could. 

I think before I go any further I should tell you what 
particular chances have fallen in my way to render me 
capable of forming an opinion on this question. From being 
a lad (I should say for quite 40 years), this subject has had 
for me a most fascinating interest. I was a born fisher- 
man, a hereditary fisherman, I think; but catching a great 
quantity of fish never had anything like the attraction for 
me that the study of the habits of fish and the wonderful 
problems, both of sea and fresh water, had, and I have 
always made it a subject of keen study. In 1875, when 
the Southport Aquarium was started, about a fortnight 
before it was opened, I was asked to join the Board of 
Directors, and to take charge of the Aquarium, as none of 
the directors had studied the question of fish culture. I 


agreed to do so, on condition that I should not be expected 


3 


to do anything else, or to serve on any other committee. 
Before the end of the fortnight we succeeded in opening 
the Aquarium with our tanks in a beautiful condition; 800 
fishes were in them, nearly 3,000 anemones (some of these 
are still living), and other specimens. The whole of these 
I caught or collected myself at Fleetwood. 

_ After that time, for fifteen years, I had the sole and 
entire management of the Southport Aquarium, and not 
only that, but I caught more than three-fourths of all the 
fish they ever possessed, and during that time I was 
intimately associated with the fishermen along our coast, 
and formed a very high opinion of them. 

We had to solve the question of catching the fish, 
feeding, and keeping them. The work done attracted the 
attention of Mr. Frank Buckland, Sir Spencer Walpole, 
Inspectors of Sea Fisheries, and Mr. Archibald Young, 
Inspector of Salmon Fisheries in Scotland. From almost 
the beginning to the end of the time I was engaged in the 
work I enjoyed their friendship, and I constantly gave them 
such information as I possessed on the question of fisheries. 
I made Mr. Buckland most of the microscopic sneer laid 
for his Oyster Fisheries Bill, and I was asked again and 
again by Mr. Buckland and Sir Spencer Walpole to join 
them in their enquiries, and to assist them by my local 
knowledge and my knowledge of the fishermen. I was, 


therefore, often with them. 


4 


The work also brought me in contact with Dr. Day, ex- 
Inspector of Fisheries in India, and until his death we were 
close friends. 

Again, I had another source of information as to what 
was being done in America, for I had the pleasure of 
numbering Professor Baird, the head of the U.S. Fishery. 
Commission, among my personal. friends, and was. in 
constant communication with him until his premature death. 

-I. merely mention these facts to point out the oppor- 
tunities I have had of learning something about the 
conditions of our Sea Fisheries. 

You will agree with me that in a great affair of this sort it 
is very foolish to pass laws before you know what you are 
doing. When this Sea Fisheries Bill was first proposed 
I thought it would probably be. a very good thing, as 
greater opportunities of. obtaining information would be 
afforded. 

The County Council having got the powers I was shocked 
to find that, the idea that seemed -to possess them was not 
that information should be sought, but that something must 
be done to stop some people from doing something; the ques- 
tion was to find out what that something was, but something 
it must be. Many years ago this same question was 
brought up. The question of the exhaustion of-our Sea 
Fisheries is practically -as: old.as -the hills, in spite of the - 


fact that the yield increases every year... There is.I believe 


5 


a clause in Magna Charta prohibiting certain nets being 
used because certain sea fishes were falling off. 

What I object to in the management of the Lancashire 
Sea Fisheries is that there has been no honest attempt made 
to place before the public and- before the members of the 
County Council the full bearing of the subject. I was utterly 
disgusted in the earlier stages when I saw the officials 
taking out fish salesmen and landsmen. People who cer- 
tainly had no knowledge whatever (for even a fish salesman 
as such knows nothing of fishery questions beyond the 
market value of different species), were taken out to sea and 
were shown the effect of a trawl net in bringing up a large 
number of small fish, and were dismissed with the idea that 
this was the normal state of things in our Fisheries, and 
that in a very few years there would not be a fish in the sea. 

Now, sir, there are three great laws that regulate the 
supply of fish in water, both fresh water and sea water, and 
those three laws are easily capable of demonstration. The 
first is enormous power of reproduction. The female cod, 
when they come on the spawning grounds in winter or early 
spring deposit on an average nine million eggs apiece; the 
conger eel I note from my own observation deposits from four- 
teen to fifteen million eggs, and all food fishes are enormously 
prolific, though the actual number of eggs differs in. different 
species. Ifthe eggs laid along the Lancashire coast only, 


in one year, were all to hatch and all to grow to adult size, 


6 


you could not sail a ship across to Ireland. With this enor- 
mous reproduction, therefore, there comes in necessarily the 
second great law, requiring enormous destruction to keep 
the thing at a normal limit. 

The third law is a very curious one, and I don’t think 
it is well known. We might call it one of retardation of 
development. I never heard anybody attach proper im- 
portance to it. You will probably, some of you who are 
fishermen, have heard that when a lake or reservoir is made 
on a small river it is discovered that there are much larger 
fish in the reservoir than there were inthe river originally. 
If you were to turn a large number of calves into a field, 
and there was not sufficient food and room for them they 
would die. In the same way, if you were to set a lot of 
seeds in the garden, and you set them so close that there 
was not room for them they also would die. It is not so 
with fishes, or with most marine and fresh water animals, 
probably with all. I have tried many sorts, and this special 
and most curious law affects them all. If the environment 
is such that there is not. room to grow; of im there is 
not sufficient food, the creatures may remain healthy, but 
they will be small, they will never grow to their full 
proportions until the conditions are favourable; the con- 
sequence is you will have a large stock of tiny fish. I 
was puzzled for many years to understand what the meaning 


of this could be, until it struck me that the explanation was 


7 


probably this, that with such enormous destruction being 
required to go on, possibly the destruction might sometime 
be rather overdone, anda whole year’s brood might be swept 
off. The vacancy thus created would be immediately 
filled by those little forms whose rate of growth had been 
retarded; they would rush in and occupy the vacant 
space. . 

Apart, however, from any great convulsion sweeping 
away a whole year’s brood, something of this kind’ does 
actually take place. Nature acts just as an intelligent 
gardener or farmer does. Some crops, such as cabbages, 
celery, &c., which bear removal, it is found most economical 
to grow in seed«beds and to transplant. By this means 
ground can be used for another crop, and as that is cleared, 
well-grown specimens of the next can be planted out, and 
so save the time of:the larger fields or beds. This phe- 
nomenon has a most important bearing upon the fishery 
question, for Nature says in effect to the fisherman, ‘‘ Work 
away, take all you can make any use of, you do not need to 
wait for another year’s crop. I have vast reserves of young 
well-grown fish ready to plant out. The more you take, the 
more I will supply.” 

Nature in the sea has one great advantage. The 
agriculturist must time his seed-beds so that the young 
plants will be exactly ready when wanted, but in the sea 


Nature can hold her stock at any size she likes until they 


8 


are required, and thus in her cperations, though there is 
enormous destruction, there 1s no waste. 

Part of this great fact you can demonstrate for your- 
selves. If you will take common water snails, put a few of 
them in an aquarium, and allow them to spawn there, you 
will have at the end of twelve months, provided all goes 
right, hundreds of tiny snails; but if you take half-a-dozen 
of these out soon after being hatched and put them in another 
aquarium, giving them plenty of room, you will find at the 
end of twelve months that they are full-grown specimens. 
Anyone who has kept fish in a parlour aquarium must have 
noticed that the fish do not grow. In the Southport 
Aquarium we were able to observe this matter very fully. 
We obtained a quantity of young turbot about the size of 
the palm of the hand, and placed a number of them in the 
small table tanks, and a further number in the hall tanks, 
these latter tanks being about 1oft. square by 6ft. deep. At 
the end’of a year I was struck with the fact that those we had 
in the table tanks were only the size they were when caught, 
while those in the hall tanks weighed 3 or 4lb. I had some 
of these removed and put in the big tank 3o0ft. long. At 
the end of another year those in the table and hall tanks 
were still about the same size; they had made very little 
srowth; but those in the big tank ranged from 8 to tolb. 
each. At the end of another’ year those in the table and 


hall ‘tanks’ were ‘still stationary, while those in the large 


9 


tank ranged from 14 to 18lb. After this, though those in 
the small tanks lived some years, they did not make any 
appreciable growth; they had obviously reached the limit 
their circumstances permitted. Sir S. Walpole and Mr. 
Archibald Young were greatly interested in this experiment 
when in Southport about some salmon experiments I had 
been making. 

When first the Southport Aquarium was opened, I caught 
at Fleetwood, on the Little Ford Bank, near the Wyre 
Lighthouse, a number of conger eels ; none of these weighed 
more than 2 to 3lb.; if there was an odd 4-pounder it was 
an exception. Some of these I had put in the small tanks, 
and some in the large tanks. Those in the hall tanks grew 
and attained a weight of 6 or 7lb.; those in the big tank, 
where they had plenty of room, went ahead at a most 
surprising rate. At the end of three-and-a-half years one 
of them: died.” That fish -tutned the scales at 6olb.< 1 
forwarded it at once to Mr. Buckland, and he had a cast 
made from it, which is now in the South Kensington 
Museum. Another died at the end of five years. --‘Un- 
fortunately I was not in Southport ‘at the time, but I went 
the next day to. the Aquarium. » It had. been thrown’in a 
corner of the hot engine-room for me to see, and being a 
soft watery fish it would lose much’ weight under these 
eircumstances in twenty-four hours. Still, the creature 


turned the scales at gglb. This fish is also cast, and is in 


10 


the South Kensington Museum. Others grew to enormous 
sizes, but these two are the only ones of which I havea 
record of the exact weights. 

I tried similar experiments with cod, and with exactly 
the same results, but I could not grow them to more than 
8 to rolb., a weight which they attained in three years, and 
this only in the large tanks. In the smaller ones they grew 
very little. They had evidently reached the maximum 
growth possible in their circumstances. Various flat fish 
gave similar results, but captivity affected them more. I 
also tried the grey mullet. I could never succeed in raising 
them to more than from 4lb. to ilb. weight. They 
seemed more restless, and to require a larger area in which 
to develop. I, however, retarded the growth of’ some 
by keeping them in a little tank until eight years old, when 
they were only the size of minnows. 

Now, sir, to deal with the experiments made by our 
scientists under direction of the Sea Fisheries Committee of 
the County Council, and upon which they have founded 
_ their legislation. I do not deny for a moment that 
they look at first sight, and have been represented to 
the County Council as very shocking, but I think I 
can show that first appearances. by no means prove the 
case, and that these advisers have presented an utterly 
false argument, though founded on their own experi- 


ments. 


Il 


Suppose you were to bring someone from the country 
and take him into one of our mills and into the cellars 
below, and show him how the yarns were being damped, 
he might go away thinking us a most immoral lot, and if he 
were a parson he would preach most violent sermons against 
us, as has in fact been done by a very eminent minister of 
religion in Manchester; he would probably advise penal 
legislation. We know perfectly well that yarns must be 
conditioned, and that it is as much part of the process of 
producing them as spinning. If we were to get a Cockney 
from the centre of London, and take him out to a farm, and 
show him the farmer thrashing his wheat and sending the 
bulk of it to the mill instead of saving it and sowing it, and 
led him to believe that every grain so treated was a plant 
destroyed, what would he think about it? You could per- 
suade him that it was a monstrous and extravagant proceed- 
ing. But misrepresentation of this kind is infinitely worse 
in the sea. Wheat produces say 100 fold, but the seed, 
as we may call it, of fishes is to be calculated by a million 
fold in many cases, and in nearly all our food fishes is enor- 
mous, so that only a mere fraction of the young can ever 
find room in which to grow. This illustration was used by 
the Sea Fisheries Commissioners in 1878. 

In reference to the position of the fishermen, what I 
complain bitterly of in our sea fisheries scientists is the con- 


tinual condemnation of the men, and utter misrepresentation 


1zZ 


of their proceedings. If you were to read the report of the 
Sea Fisheries authorities, you would think the men were a 
set of fiends; that they were simply destroying the contents 
of the sea for their own will and pleasure, whereas the 
truth is that, in the first place the destruction is infinitely 
less than it is represented as being; in the second 
place, compared with the other destructive forces, the 
destruction made by fishermen is inappreciable, though 
alone it might appear to be considerable, and in the 
third place, legislation does not affect the preservation 
that it is represented to do, and its cruelty to the fisher- 
men cannot be justified. There is nothing else like it in 
English law. 

When these bye-laws were passed (to demonstrate to 
you that they were passed by people who knew- nothing at 
all about what they were doing), it was decided that the 
Superintendent should have a steamer in order to ‘ protect 
the fisheries.” I was at Fleetwood soon after, and happened 
to be standing on the beach chatting witn one of the fisher- 
men, when a pretty little steamer similar to those on 
Windermere, but such a thing as I never saw on the open 
sea, Came steaming up the channel witha big ensign flying. 
I asked, ‘“‘ What in the world is that?” The fisherman 
turned’ round and said, .‘*’That is the. Lancashire Sea 
Fisheries'Steamer.’’ I said, ‘‘ That ?”’: ** Yes.” *“* You do not 


mean to say that is their idea of a steamer for investigating 


= 


Or -protectine the sea fisheries 2" <« ** Yes, sir,’ « he. said, 
‘“‘that is.their idea.” 

As he knew the sort of: weather I was in the habit of 
going out in, I said, ‘‘ How would it stand our work?’’ He 
laughed as he replied, ‘‘ You would knock it to, pieces in a 
week. But they do not intend to go out your sort of 
weather.”’ 

They did after a while find out their mistake, and sold 
the steamer. They then bought one which can face a bit 
of weather, and so at a great monetary loss to the county 
remedied one mistake which need never have been made. 
I do not give them great credit for this, for the information 
was knocked into them by old ocean, who showed them that 
their own lives were in danger, and however -the fishermen 
may fare, we must all see it would be a serious matter if a 
Professor and Sea Fisheries Superintendent ‘‘ ran some 
risk of being drowned.’’ They have never shown any 
inclination to acknowledge that their bye-laws were made 
on the same kind of information that induced them to buy 
their toy steamer, but in the same ignorance in which they 
bought their steamer their regulations were made and are 
enforced to-day. 

We will consider first fisheries proper and shrimping 
(cockling and musseling I will deal with later). -I will also 
take the scientists’ reports as far as che experiments are con- 


cerned, and assume that these were correct. , But I will try 


14 


to put the deductions to be drawn from their experiments 
into the light of what actually takes place, and the lessons 
I think we may gather from them. I speak from the 
experience gathered in hundreds of expeditions with the 
fishermen in their own boats, using their own tackle, and 
using it-as they ordinarily do, not as used on the ‘ John 
Fell,” the C.C. Fisheries Steamer. 

I am obliged for a text to go back to Professor Hard- 
man’s report for 1894, those for 1895-96-97 being absolutely 
barren of any fact really adding to our knowledge, but con- 
sisting of learned descriptions of the structure of certain 
small crustaceans, and a series of beautiful sketches of their 
anatomy, and various. articles on scientific (principally 
microscopic) subjects; they are in fact articles on these 
subjects published at the expense of the county; if they 
were reports of research endowed as such, we should have 
no cause of complaint, but as the report of men harassing 
the fishermen as they are doing, they are both useless and 
misleading. On turning to the 1894 report we find on page 
4g a typical description of experiments and deductions. 
We give the report in full. 

‘©The statistics of hauls taken during the past year 
from the steamer show once more, if any showing is still 
needed, that that destructive engine, the shrimp trawl, 
brings up along with a miserably small number of 


shrimps an astonishingly large number of young food 
fishes. On November 2nd, off the Ribble estuary, with 


T5 


five quarts of shrimps were taken over 5.000 undersized 
food fishes. On the same date, off Blackpool, with one 
and-a-quarter quarts of shrimps were 10,000 fish. On 
October 24th, in Heysham Lake, with two quarts of 
shrimps were 4,000 plaice, about four inches long, and so 
on. Of course, it is satisfactory to know that there are 
so many young fish on the ground, but it is deplorable 
that for the sake of a quart or two of shrimps several 
thousands of young fish should run some risk of being 
sacrificed. 


BAR SHANK NET EXPERIMENES: 


These experiments were carried out by Mr. Dawson 
for the purpose of determining whether the destruction 
of small fish caught while shrimping could be decreased 
without affecting the number of shrimps taken. In 
carrying out the experiments an ordinary shank net and 
a shrimp trawl were worked over the same ground, along 
with a modified shank net having a bar fixed to the 
frame about three inches off the bottom, to which bar 
the lower part of the net is attached, the three being 
worked simultaneously, so that the experiments might 
have a fair trial. As stated in the introduction, these 
experiments have, so far, supported Mr. Dawson’s idea 
as to the fish caught in this net being fewer in number 
than those caught either by the ordinary shank net or 
the shrimp trawl, but it would perhaps be better that 
the experiments should be carried on for a further period 
before any definite opinion is expressed on this matter.”’ 


The statistics given show enormously in favour of the 


shank as against the trawl. 


16 


Now, sir, I think any person not acquainted with the sub- 
ject, to whom this report was presented, would assume this 
to be the normal state of things in shrimping, and that this 
was a fair representation of what took place, and that the 
shrimping industry was a miserable business. We may also 
conclude that we are to understand that Mr. Dawson made 
the wonderful discovery that a shank net is much less 
destructive than a trawl. I say nothing about Mr. Dawson's 
improved shank. The report admits that the experiments 
which apparently showed a slight advantage over the 
ordinary’ shank net were not conclusive, and if they 
were experiments in fair or moderate weather on a 
steamer, they are not much guide to results that would 
be obtained in sailing craft, where the slightest complication 
may make a net useless, and where it is as much as ever 
the men can do to handle the boat and nets. 

In regard to the shank net and these assumed discoveries, 
would it not have been well if Mr. Herdman had placed the 
whole truth before the committee and told them that the 
shank trawl was invented (I believe before Mr. Dawson was 
born) by the fishermen in order to reduce the intolerable 
nuisance of catching small fish ; and that its effect was well 
known before County Councils and Sea Fisheries Committees 
were thought of. I myself explained the action of it, and 
the reason why it was used, when practicable, to the Com- 


mission who made the enquiry in 1878, and my “evidence 


17 
and the facts, were embodied in their report to Parliament, 
‘which is now before me. Unfortunately, however, the 
shank net can only be worked in certain localities, owing to 
the nature of the sea bottom, and in other localities there is 
no resource but the trawl net. 

Shrimpers will not use a trawl when a shank will do. I 
cannot give you a better proof of this than that when I 
wanted to ‘get small fish for the Aquarium, and wished to 
use a trawl on grounds where a shank could be used, 
I had to hire the boat, &c., by the day, whereas if I 
‘was content to take such fish as the shank nets: got, I 
could go out as I liked, the men taking the shrimps. The 
reason assigned was’that we should catch too many small 
“fish to pay. If Mr. Dawson could invent something still 
better, it would be such a boon to the shrimpers that they 
‘would, I think, almost forgive him for the injuries they 
‘ suffer from now. | 
| Now, as to the results of hauls, the general impression 
from this one-sided report must be that shrimp-fishing is a 
miserable, petty business, carried on at a ruinous cost to 
‘other fisheries. Mr. Dawson does not tell the Committee 
that shrimping employs far more men,’’and brings in far 
more money to the fishermen and their families than the 
deep-sea fisheries off the Lancashire coast, and that, there- 
‘fore, it is an industry not lightly to be interfered with. But 


‘serious as this omission is,- it is-trifling compared with the 


C 


18 


gross misrepresentation of facts in actual fishing which we 
are left to infer from the report. No shrimper would, or 
could, fish under such circumstances as are reported. I 
have, scores of times, been with them when such a haul 
was made, and the consequence has invariably been that 
they gave up fishing and moved off to try their luck else- 
where, where young fish were not so thick on the ground, 
this not from any sentimental kindness to the young fish, 
but asa pure matter of business. The shrimps would be 
worth about fourpence per quart to the fisherman, so in 
such a case as is reported, for the hard work involved ina 
long trawl, as well as an hour or more spent in picking the 
few shrimps from a mass of fish, they would receive 
fivepence, and out of this wear and tear of boat, sails, and 
net would have to be paid. 

If we have shewn what these experiments do not prove, 
let us see what they do prove. We must in justice to these 
gentlemen assume that their hauls were in their opinion 
fair examples of the shrimp fishing. If so, we have genuine 
cause for alarm, for they show such an enormous abundance 
of young fish forms as to make it certain that our shrimp- 
ing population must starve, for under such conditions as are 
reported they cannot possibly live themselves, much less 
support wives and families. If the reports are not strictly 
fair, but if they still represent in some degree, though ex- 


aggerated, the present state of things, the shrimp fishing is 


19 


in a very parlous condition. If the reported examples are 
not fair examples they destroy all our faith in the authori- 
ties. The truth is that such hauls ave made, and unfor- 
tunately for the shrimpers, are too often made to be 
pleasant, but they are by no means fair or ordinary examples, 
though they occur often enough to prove that young fish 
exist in numbers many times more than can _ possibly 
develop. These young fish of two to four inches long are 
those which have escaped the dangers of babyhood. They 
are not the miserable little larval forms which Professor 
Herdman dignifies by the title of ‘ fry,’ and which he pro- 
poses at enormous cost to hatch and distribute. ‘‘ Carrying 
coals to Newcastle ’’ is sober common sense compared with 
such a proceeding as this. Further, these gentlemen have 
the grace to admit that in spite of the alleged destructive 
ness of shrimping, it was satisfactory to find such enormous 
quantities of young fish on the grounds, that even these are 
not sure of being destroyed, only ‘‘they run some risk.” 
They must be aware that in the normal course of things 
nearly all the young fish go overboard as soon as the nets 
are cleared, and that flat fish are little the worse. Those 
which may die are not lost. It merely means that other 
forms of life below water get a meal a little easier than they 
otherwise would do. To me and to the fishermen it is of 
infinitely greater importance that the wives and children of 


the men should not starve by the action of the Fisheries 


20 
Committee than that a few small fishes should “run some 
risk” of dying a day or two earlier than they would 
‘have done in the ordinary course of nature. 
Having, I think, fairly dealt with the shrimp question, 
Jet us look for a minute or two at the restriction ‘in size of 
mesh in trawi nets. 
First of all, we must understand that in a trawl net it is 
to the fisherman’s interest to use as large a mesh as he can 
| profitably do, for the larger the mesh the easier the draft is 
through the water, the better the trawl keeps the bottom, 
and, owing to the greater speed, the more fish are caught. 
But this is qualified by the necessity of having a mesh small 
enough to keep all the fish worth having. To shew the 
necessity of interfering with shrewd, practical men wHo 
‘know their business, the committee show two jars, one sup- 
posed to illustrate the average size of fish taken with seven- 
inch mesh, the other with four and a-half inch mesh, which 
would escape through the larger, and, as they say, “‘ remain 
to grow to adult age.” If the fish in the smaller jar are a 
fair average, in the gross some would be larger, some 
smaller. Many of these are big enough to cook, and are 
far more delicious than larger-specimens. 
But I see with surprise that about half the bulk are 
young whiting. Surely the scientists must know that not 
_ one of these could possibly wriggle through the net and live. 


While the smaller mesh retains them to be made use of, the 


Zin 


larger kills them and leaves them for the crabs and shrimps. 
How do I know this? By repeated experiments and re- 
peated disappointments. Salmon, sea perch (bass), grey 
mullet, and similar hard scaled fishes with scales firmly 
attached, can go through a net and can stand some pressure, 
but these members of the cod family are so tender that the 
slightest pressure is fatal. When collecting specimens, I 
always took all I possibly could with hook and line, to pre- 
vent any crushing, and such as we were obliged to obtain 
by trawling were got by making special drags, only keeping 
the net down ten minutes and then lifting it. Even with 
this care, impracticable in fishing for a living, the mortality 
was enormous. ‘The experiments tried on board the steamer 
of putting them in tanks for two or three hours, and because 
they were alive at the end of that time assuming they were . 
uninjured, are useless. So temporarily tenacious of life are 
they that I always took them alive to the Aquarium, but 
considered myself very lucky if five per cent. lived a week. 
The bulk of them were dead next morning, while of hook- 
and-line caught fish I rarely lost five per cent. 

One_ species of cod, the ‘* Power,’ (Gadus Minutus) 
would not stand the handling needful to take them off the 
hook. These are too small a member of the cod family to 
be much used for eating, but they are exceedingly beautiful 
in an aquarium, far more so than any other of the family. 


At last I took a pair of forceps to sea nS me, and lifting 


22 


the line out of the water when I caught a fish, I grasped the 
lower lip of the fish with the foreceps while I disengaged the 
hook. ‘I then dropped the fish into the water of the 
carrier. When the fish arrived at the Aquarium the carrier 
was lowered into a tank and the fish allowed to swim out. 
Then and only then we succeeded in getting the fish to live. 
Such facts as these, I think, clearly show that the restrictions 
of the Board effect no good, but do actual harm, so far as 
round fish are concerned. 

Now about the soles and plaice. These fish are so 
tenacious of life that when collecting for the Aquarium we 
could, when pressed for room in our carriers, carry the fish 
in a box, simply covering them with a little seaweed. 
Without any other care I have had them:alive a day on the 
boat. 

But what takes place on a fishing boat in actual fishing 
for a living, not-when playing on board a steamer? As soon 
as the net is hauled the catch is looked over. What the 
fishermen can eat or make money of is picked out, the rest 
go overboard. So inveterate is this custom, that it is often 
dificult to get the men to wait until one can pick out 
subjects of scientific interest. Over and over again I have 
had to stop them, while they fidgetted about with shovel and 
broom. Any one who has.asked them to bring in some of 
their rubbish to examine will know how difficult it is to 


induce them,to preserve it. Ifyou, sir, had been on board 


23 


fishing boats as much as I have, you would have seen the 
reason for immediately getting rid of all slippery substances 
from the deck. When the wind blows a bit, it is as much 
as you can do to keep on your feet, and handle the boats 
and nets with the deck clean. 

Considering these facts, and the strong practical reasons 
named above against using too small a mesh, why should a 
group of scientists presume to dictate to shrewd business 
men how to carry on their business, and why should they be 
armed with such monstrous powers? What is the’ effect of 
this absurd legislation? Take their own statements in 
regard to the Blackpooi closed ground. 


‘When it is considered that from 70 to go boats 
used to be employed shrimping on these grounds (Black- 
pool Closed Grounds), each boat making from four to 
five hauls on each tide, it will not be wondered that the 
Committee closed them, nor can it be denied that the 
closing must be of immense benefit in the protection of 
undersized fish.” 


What about the wives and children of the poor fisher- 
men? Two men at least would be employed on each boat. 
Could any possible benefit accruing to the deep sea fishers 
compensate for the depriving all these men of their living? 
But this is considered to be a trifle when put into the balance 
against ‘some risk” of immature-fishes being killed. 

Let us consider for a minute what this really means. 


Supposing the boats earned on an average only £3 per 


24: 


week, that is not much more than £1 a week each for the men 
After allowing for wear and fear depreciation, &c., and as 
fishing is a highly-skilled labour, I think everyone will 
admit that this very much understates the earnings. But 
this gives us £12,480 per annum as the value of the harvest 
of which the 80 boats have been arbitrarily deprived (I take 
80 as midway between 7o and go), and the country, ot 
course, has lost food to this value, and for no purpose what- 
ever except that large fish may have a grand time feeding 
on what, together with themselves, rightfully belongs to 
tielaishermen: The harvest, however, of which the men 
have been deprived would have been mostly shrimps, and 
these employ the fishermen’s families in preparing them 
for the market, in shelling the small ones for potting, &c., 
and in retailiug the large ones. During these processes 
the shrimps nearly double in value. It appears, therefore, 
a a reasonable estimate, on Professor Herdman’s own 
statistics, that this enclosed area yielded the fishermen 
and their families an income of nearly £25,000 per annum, 
so that by his beneficent oversight they have, by this 
time, been robbed of some £150,000. 

~ No wonder Dutch shrimps are sold in Southport since 
this authority was established in presence of such a state- 
ment as'this in the report. No wonder the fishermen feel 
they are cruelly and wantonly shut out from the harvest 


God has. given them, and that they try now and then to 


25. 


snatch a bit of it. The wonder is that they are so law- 
abiding. But if the. present. persecution continues, and | 
repeated prosecution and punishment for what is no 
crime is maintained, the character of the men must 
deteriorate. | 
If, in addition, we reckon the loss to the fishermen 
through restriction of mesh, the heavy loss to cocklers in 
their having to submit to a gauge arbitrarily imposed upon 
them, when political economy has fixed onea little smaller 
(the difference is not great, but one is costly to the county 
and prevents the cockler earning a proper living, while 
the natural limit is equally fixed, works for nothing, and 
Causes no. irritation),- we cannot, I think, avoid . the 
conclusion that even the heavy cost of this department is 
a trifle compared with the tax levied on the fishermen, It 
will be a moderate estimate to put the loss at a quarter of 
a million of money since these laws were passed. 
_ Professor Herdman’s salve for all this is the breeding 
and feeding of shrimps. And if he would cease prosecuting 
the fishermen until he had satisfactorily accomplished it, 
and provided fhe remedy, we should have nothing to 
complain of. He suggests ‘“‘as well worthy of serious 
consideration” a trial of artificial shrimp culture in 
enclosed areas, with a view to providing some substitute 
for the present destructive method of shrimping, and pro- 


poses to feed them on offal. Speaking as a naturalist with 


26 


some experience of feeding marine animals I assert that 
this could ‘not be done at any cost. The Professor talks 
of offal, but though we may speak of certain animals as 
scavengers, the various inhabitants of the sea are so fitted 
into one another that they are mutually dependent on one 
another, and for one form to feed on what is the natural 
offal of other species is a very different thing from pitching 
a heap of what we are pleased to call offal into the sea. 
Marine animals are dainty feeders in their own line. 
Professor Herdman’s creek would soon become a filthy 
abomination if offal were thrown in to feed his shrimps. 
It is a costly job to find marine animals suitable food on a 
small scale, when their value as exhibits is many hundred 
fold what it could be as food; on a commercial scale, and 
one of such vast magnitude, it is impossible. It is really 
difficult to believe that the Professor is not poking fun at 
the Council. But itis similar to the many Jules Verne-like 
proposals set forth solemnly in the fishery reports. 
Shrimps are not found of marketable size in little creeks. 
Existing as they do in myriads along our coasts, no 
inhabitant of the sea seems to require more of the 
invigorating influence of the mighty tides that sweep 
along our borders. In the Aquarium we found that of all 
edible creatures we could keep the ‘smallest weight of 
shrimps in proportion to water, and they required a heavy 


circulation to keep them healthy. 


27 


The Professor writes lightly and cheerily about enclos- 
ing a space ‘‘ with wattles,” but to shut shrimps in, especially 
in their early stages, the fence would have to be the finest 
gauze. Has the learned Professor ever calculated what 
rearing and feeding our shrimp harvest would cost? Take 
the piece of ground alone which he has been instrumental in 
so lightly closing off Blackpool—closed as being an insignifi- 
cant matter tothe fishermen. Taking the boats fishing there 
as 80 (he says 70 to go), in order to make shrimping pay, the 
boats must take at least 40 quarts each per day. At 4d. 
per quart this would only leave 13s. 4d. per day to pay 
two men and wear and tear of boats and nets, so I think 
it a low estimate. Ifthe boats fished five days a week for 
40 weeks this would mean 640,000 quarts of shrimps from 
this bit alone. How are we to enclose an area like this, 
and artificially feed such a stock as to yield a crop of this 
kind? If it were possible to erect sea walls to enclose 
areas sufficient to rear our shrimp crop, the revenues 
of Lancashire would not pay for them, and it would take 
an army of men to catch and provide food. Speaking 
as an engineer, even if we were prepared to sink untold 
millions in such a project it could not be done. The 
tides would laugh at such utter folly, and where the 
profit could come ‘in, when Nature has provided so 
bountiful a harvest for the mere taking of it, is beyond 


my comprehension. 


28 


Having considered the size. of the mesh, let us for a 
_moment look.at the limitation of length of trawl beam, and 
width of cockle rake. To obtain any foundation to argue. 
hon in regard to these, we must admit that trawling does 
considerable harm, and that some regulations are needed. 
For argument’s.sake alone we will allow this, but admitting 
it, and without it the laws are absurd, are we any better ? | 
No one will pretend that a wider trawl or wider cockle rake | 
does more harm than a narrower one in proportion to the 
whole work it does. Therefore, if we admit the necessity 
of working with a trawl or a cockle rake at all, the only 
possible object of legislation is to “preventathe individual 
fisherman or mockler endowed by his Maker with more skill 
or strength than his fellow from using the same, saying to 
him in effect, “Yes, we know your Maker gave you more 
strength and skill, and intended you to excel your fellows, 
but He made a great mistake. Be thankful we are here to 
repair the blunder.” Even admitting the argument that 
the harvest is limited, which we think the Fleetwood instance. 
named later on,* supported as it is by much other evidence, 
proves groundless, there is no reason why a man stronger 
or more skilful than his neighbour should not obtain all the 
advantage his strength | or skill gives him. Itis the most 
elementary principle of political economy that he should be 


allowed. tO, do the best he can, and so stimulate his fellows. 


* See page 45. 


29 


to renewed efforts. The harvest of the land is limited as is 
the area of land, but we never think of saying to the suc- 
' cessful farmer, ‘‘ You must not farm more than a certain 
"amount of land, nor use more than a certain power of 

machinery because you will get more eee your share of 
| the harvest,”’ but in fishery matters our legislation during the 
“last fifteen years 1s, as [have said, like nothing else in English 
law. The Law of Nature, that every variety whether of 
| man, beast, bird, or fish has a constant tendency to revert 
7 to an original type receives froni this a valuable illustration. 
| It is well known that sons of savage chieftains who have re- 
ceived in Europe a civilised education often on returning to 
their wild homes revert very much towards the ancient 
| practices of their tribes. A savage everywhere is delighted 
to clothe himself in the garb of civilisation, but he remains 
a savage underneath. And so we find that a high scientific 
education is after all only skin deep. Beneath all is the 

savage or the medieval mind, which only needs opportunity 
‘to break forth and astonish civilisation by acting on the 
worst lines of mediaeval thought. This may be to some 
extent explicable, as it is a well- known fact, proverbially SO, 
_that very high scientific knowledge and the absorption ‘of 
the mind in pursuit of ‘such ‘studies, whether mathematics, 
| theology, natural science, or any other branch, often with- 
draws a than from the work-a- day world, so that he becomes 


é 


unpractical. 


30 


But. what must we say when a County Council acting 
on scientific advice propose, and the most enlightened 
Parliament that ever existed legislates, on these lines, 
says in effect to the superior fisherman, ‘‘We know you 
are more skilled than your neighbour, we know that 
Providence intended you to excel, we know that it is for 
the general good that every man should do his best for him- 
self, and that by this means the nation progresses. We 
also know that you are a trained fisherman by your own 
and hereditary knowledge. You are best fitted to succeed 
in your own line. We know.your business is of vital im- 
portance to the nation, and as population increases will 
become more so, and it is for the good of the common- 
wealth that you should succeed. But this is a fishery 
question ; it is governed neither by the ordinary rules of 
political economy nor yet by common sense, so if you wish 
to play your part in life, wish to rise as you were intended 
to do, you must abandon your base, wasteful to yourself 
and the nation as-such a process is, and recommence your 
life in some other sphere, for if you remain in your present 
calling your ambition must be limited. You can either be 
a 30ft. trawler, a 13ft. shrimper, or a 12in. cockler, but 
beyond these you cannot rise. If you are a cockler and 
want to know how much money a cockler ought tc earn, or 


how many cockles are ‘plenty’* for you to get, you must 


* See page 39. 


31 


apply to Bailiff Wright.” Providence and the laws of 
political economy make such a fearful mess when they tackle 
fishing questions that we have put a-water bailiff on to 
manage this part for them. It is fortunate that in this 
capacity we have such an incarnation of wisdom. The 
only explanation of all this is that the subject is so obscure 
that the gentlemen who compose the authority feel out of - 
their depth, and trust to their scientific advisers. But it is 
a serious responsibility to plead this. I hope by the time I 
have done to show you the misery that is being wrought, 
and I am sure you will agree with me that it is not too 
much to ask these gentlemen to study the subject, and not 
to trust to such wildly unpractical advisers. 

In the Exhibition of the Sea Fisheries Committee you 
have a collection of what is supposed to be. the food of 
fishes. I will not weary you by dealing with them all, I 
will deal with the cod as a fair sample ofthe whole. They 
have put there two or three crabs, and a shrimp or two, 
and something cf that sort. It is, of course, to the interest 
of their case to minimise the other destructive forces of 
Nature, and magnify that of man. They say that is 
the result of examining the contents of cod stomachs 
at the Liverpool Laboratory. Very well, possibly it may 
be so. They ignore the fact, well-known to all fisher- 
men, that when fishes are in extreme danger, say in a 


net or caught with a line, they are in the habit of 


32 


disgorging all the food out of their stomachs that they can. 
If any of you have fished for pike you will probably have 
had ample proof of this. Itisa mechanical process, and, of 
course, ‘depends on the food itself whether it can be quickly 
discharged. If the fish have been feeding on other fish 
they will be easily parted with, but such food as is here 
shown would be very difficult to throw up, as it is so full 
of points and angles to anchor by. The stomachs, there- 
fore, when examined ‘in a laboratory would contain such 
matter only, but only a small proportion of the fish food. 
But that this is a true representation of cod food I utterly 
deny. All members of the cod family are enormously 
destructive, and they alone, amid all the other agencies, des- 
troy an amount of small fish by the side of which all that 
man does is a mere trifle. Hundreds of times I have seen 
this disgorging process, and, with most trifling exceptions, 
the food parted with “was always fish. In addition I have 
‘had to feed large numbers of these creatures for years, 
and have done so with the gréatest success, always using 
fish for food, The avidity with which it was taken 
from the first showed how palatable it was. Further, 
“no fisherman “ardiind our coasts would dream of bait- 
“ing with such subjects as are shown in the bottle 
in the cofidition shown. It does not appear to me that 
_ these are the actual contents of the stomachs, for the 


digestive process is so rapid in fishes that if they were, 


33 


they must show evidence of it, while these are perfectly 
free from any such trace. It appears to me that they are 
simply whole animals of similar species to those found. | If 
so, they are of no value whatever as evidence. Weshould 
have the real contents of stomachs. 

To give an.actual illustration of cod feeding. The 
curator of the Aquarium once reported to me that 
a fisherman had brought in an enormous cod which 
was the greatest scarecrow he had ever seen, It ought 
to have been from 25 to 3o0lb. weight, but’ was only 
about g or tolb., it was in such an emaciated con- 
dition. I went to look at the fellow, and I found he 
was suffering from a very curious thing which does 
not seem to have attracted the attention of the fish- 
ery scientists. When you catch fish of the cod family in 
the sea they are often blind from a sort of cataract over 
one or both eyes. One day when I was long-line fishing 
with Mr. Greenall’s steam yacht, kindly lent me for 
the purpose, I took special note, and ro per cent. of 
those. we caught were partly blind, while 5 per cent. 
appeared totally dark. This one was quite blind. We 
had just received a quantity of herrings as food for the 
seals. They were not of the largest size, but were good 
marketable fish bought in the ordinary way. We threw 
onein. Blind or not blind, the cod recognised the presence 


of food, seized and swallowed it. We tried another, and 


D 


34 


another, and not until he had disposed of thirteen herrings 
did he cry enough. Perhaps you may say it was because 
he was hungry that he took fish, but'at the same time we’ 
had in the tank a shoal of ten or twelve splendid cod, 
averaging fully 2olb. weight each, and in prime condition, 
on which we experimented. Shortly after we had a big 
haul of small flat fish. As we did not want them in the 
hall tanks, I told the men to take the fishes and pour them 
into the big tank to see what would be the result with the 
big cod. They recognised the presence of the flat fish’ 
immediately ; their lethargic condition was thrown off 
instantly. You could scarcely credit that they were the 
same fish which had been swimming so quietly and 
solemnly round the tank; they were now so full of 
animation as they dashed wildly after their prey. Many 
were caught before they reached the bottom, and those 
that survived showed clearly by their actions that they, 
too, grasped the situation, and knew well enough that’ 
crustacea are not by any means the main food of the cod.’ 
They instantly covered themselves with sand and ap-' 
parently disappeared. The cod, however, knew better. 
They commenced to hunt for them, carefully and systemati- 
cally quartering their ground as a well-trained pointer 
would do, and affording a beautiful illustration of the use 
of the curious “‘ beard” possessed by many members of the 


cod family. By-and-bye, one of them, by means of this’ 


a5 


feeler, detected one of the youngsters and put it up. 
Away it went full speed, followed by one, two, or 
three of the huge monsters. No greyhound fancier 
ever saw a better bit of coursing as the little chap 
doubled and’ turned with the greatest agility, while 
over and over again the great lumbering cod overshot 
their mark, and the little fish went to earth, only, how- ° 
ever, to be again routed out’ and hunted until not one 
was left. 

Perhaps when Professor Herdman’s fantastic dream of 
the time when we shall not hunt our sea fish, but shall feed 
and rear them as we do our cattle is realised, we may see | 
a new sport introduced, but I fear we shall not live to enjoy 
it, for as a preliminary to even beginning to study seriously 
how to provide at a commercial price the millions of tons’ 
of food’ that would be required (to say nothing of the? 
embankments to keep the fish in, which would cost more ' 
than the Panama Canal, if they could be built at all), our | 
meteorologists must first not only understand the great 
laws that regulate wind and water, frost and heat, but 
must be able to control them, and work the great forces of 
Nature at their bidding, or all the other would be liable to 
destruction in a moment. 

As our meteorologists have made so little progress with 
this first trifling step, it will be a long time before this 
state of things is brought about. 


36 


So far.from crustacea in the condition shown in. the 
specimen bottles being the normal food of fishes, we always. 
kept plenty of small crabs in- heavily stocked tanks to act 
as scavengers and eat up any waste morsels of: food that 
might otherwise have decayed and polluted the tank. I 
never noticed the fish touch them except when they had 


bd 


cast their shells and were “soft crabs,’”’ and only in this 
condition have I ever seen a cod disgorge them. 

If we turn from these fishes, foods, and meshes .to the 
rest of the. Exhibition, what do we find? A common sea- 
man’s telescope and compass, supposed to possess some 
special merit because a fishery officer uses it ; some fancy 
badges worn by the fishery officers when hunting and_ 
harassing the fishermen, and a large series of brass instru- 
ments of torture for the fishermen (called; gauges in the 
catalogue). I think I have shown in regard to size 
of mesh, and later on shall try to do in regard to size 
of cockles and mussels, how Dame Nature:and the laws 
of political economy have provided absolute gauges. 
which cannot.be violated by the fishermen except at 
their own cost—gauges which work without cost and 
without irritation, but to our scientists these forces are 
hum-drum, old-fashioned, so they, have applied their in- 
tellects to invent something better, and we are called upon 
to gaze in admiration upon these proofs of their wisdom. 


It is true they differ very slightly from the others. It is 


37 

true also that they are enormously costly to ‘work, and 
they cause the maximum of irritation and trouble: But 
still we are supposed to welcome such improvements on 
poor old Nature and political economy. In the whole 
Exhibition, in return for the thousands of pounds spent 
by the Fisheries Committee, there is not one solitary fact 
or bit cf practical information which was not well known 
and recorded twenty years since. Not one solitary proof 
of any good done, 

You will note I speak warmly about the fishermen. I 
know them. I have spent scores, nay, hundreds of days, 
and often nights, alone on the sea with them, and have 
have been in their confidence, and have learnt to un- 
derstand them. Their occupation differentiates them 
from landsmen, and a landsman has difficulty in under- 
standing them, but once get over this difficulty and they 
will compare very well indeed with any of our work- 
ing population. I speak with deep feeling on this ques- 
tion. I hada crew of four men whom I employed when 
at work, and four more decent, obliging men I never had 
as companions. Three of them were teetotalers, the other 
a very sober man. At one swoop I lost them all. They 
were all drowned at the post of duty when the 
‘Southport and St. Annes lifeboats were wrecked. These, 
sir, are the men now being hunted, prosecuted by the 


‘score, and made into criminals for fear a few small 


38 


fish should) run some risk of being destroyed. 
The work goes on swimmingly. In the first six years 
of its history, as proudly set forth by Mr. Dawson in his 
report, 390 of these poor fellows were prosecuted, and 
made ‘to pay in fines and costs £517 5s. Since then I 
‘cannot discover the amount extorted from them, but in 
1897 no less than sixty-two were hauled before the magis- 
trates, while in 1898 the number was eighty-six. It 
sickens one, and makes one despair for humanity when we 
reflect that these are not drunkards, thieves, or rioters, 
but the most independent, courageous, law-abiding work- 
ing class we have, and they are so treated because they 
do not recognise the right of faddists to take their wives’ 
and children’s bread from them, when not one single fact 
Is in evidence to prove that the enormous sacrifices they 
have been made to suffer have done a single pennyworth 
of good. ‘ Deplorable ” it is certainly, but the deplorable 
part is not the part named by Professor Herdman. 

To deal now with the cockle and mussel industry, for 
it is hardly a fishery in the ordinary sense. At present 
the cocklers around Morecambe Bay are petitioning the 
Board of Trade for some relaxation of the oppressive Bye- 
Laws, on the ground that they cannot make a living, and 
they made a most reasonable proposal that the Com- 
mittee should send a deputation to see the work, and 


judge for themselves, but as reported in the Manchester 


39 


Guardian of May 17th, 1899, on the sole evidence of Bailiff 
Wright, who asserted that the cocklers were making 
plenty of money, the Sea Fisheries Committee reported to 
the Board of Trade that there was no ground for their 
petition. I do not know Bailiff Wright, but should 
certainly infer that he is to the Lancashire Sea Fisheries 
Committee what the world-famed Bumble was to the 
Guardians. He evidently regards the cocklers in the 
same light that worthy regarded the paupers, and is 
equally astonished when ‘ Oliver asks for more.” 

Assuming that my estimate is correct, I don’t blame 
Bailiff Wright.. Bumble’ was the natural product of 
mistaken and bad laws. administered by men out of 
sympathy with the pauper, and the frame of mind of 
Bailiff Wright is exactly what might be expected in the 
subordinate officials from the Sea Fisheries Bye-Laws 
administered by the present staff. I give the extract from 
the Manchester Guardian report of the meeting— 


‘‘ The Clerk stated that a petition had been received 
from the fishermen round Morecambe Bay praying for 
a relaxation of the Bye-Laws with reference to the size 
of mussels and cockles, as under present conditions 
they could not make a living in the winter months. 
Bailiff Wright, questioned by the Chairman, said the 
fishermen took mussels in plenty even in the winter, 
and it was resolved to inform the Board of Trade that 
there was no ground for complaint.” 


Let us examine the question. 


40 

In the first place we must grasp the fact that an 
enormous number of cockles exist. Every person outside 
the trade whom I have asked to guess the weight of cockles 
taken annually out of the sand of Morecambe Bay thought 
they were going to an extreme in guessing four or five tons. 
Now, sir, twenty years ago, as well as those used on the 
coast or taken inland by hawkers, estimated at 25% of the 
whole, the railway companies took from Morecambe Bay 
alone 3,000 tons per annum of these valuable food 
molluscs, and they probably take more to-day, as twenty 
years since the: beds were not fished to the limit of their 
capacity. This does not include the Southport shore, 
from which the crop is enormous. 

At this time, at the request of the Commissioners of. 
Fisheries, I made a series of examinations and experiments 
on cockles. These were ‘not a complete life history as 
there was, and still is, a missing link, but they were 
sufficient for the purpose, and proved beyond all doubt the 
enormous reproductive power of the cockle, and that in 
consequence in order to leave room for a certain proportion 
to attain full growth, an enormous destruction of immature 
fish must take place. This we find is the case, and to an 
extent almost beyond the power of man to estimate. 
Legislation was made on the ground that cockles were 
taken so small they were valueless, and returned nothing 


to the cocklers. I was surprised at the weight attached 


4I 


to these ‘absurd statements, and I would respectfully ask 
any member of the Sea Fisheries Committee to go on the 
cockle beds, gather a sack of cockles, convey it to the 
railway station, receive nothing for it, and then say how 
long they would like to continue such an unprofitable job. 
If in addition there were a wife and children clamouring 
for bread at home, would not the cockler speedily find 
something else to do, or ‘‘ come on the Parish.” 

I do not deny that the cocklers, like anyone else en- 
gaged in the grim struggle for existence, may occasionally 
over estimate the demands of the markets, and send up too 
many cockles, when naturally the finest specimens will get 
the advantage and there will be a loss on the smaller, but 
that itis the regular practice of cocklers to deliberately 
waste their energies in undergoing the enormous labour of 
getting unsaleable fish is too absurd even for argument, 
though it may appear reasonable to pure scientists. 

The question then resolves itself thus : is it economically 
wise to take cockles a little less than at present allowed, 
and so relieve the cocklers from their present trouble, and 
leave economic laws, which happily work free of cost, to 
settle the exact size. I think if we examine the destructive 
methods of Dame Nature, we must conclude that the 
‘cocklers may safely be left to her government. 

A very able correspondent of « Land and Water,” some 


twenty years since, from an examination of the contents of 


42 


_the crops of a single species of wildduck, the Scoter, or Black 
Duck, concluded that a flock numbering 1,000 of these 
birds would destroy per year sixty tons of cockles. He found 
twelve or fifteen cockles in eachcrop. Assuming that they 
eat about thirty a day, which would be a very moderate cal- 

culation, and allowing for their absence during the breeding 
season, this would make some seven million cockles, equal to 
about sixty tons. The ducks obtain them by following the 
tide in, and shovelling the cockles out of the loose, sloppy 
sand. I have followed the writer’s observations, and con- 
sider he is rather under than over the mark. However, I 
have seen this one species of duck in such quantities that 
1,000 might easily have been taken away and not made 
much difference. 

Another bird which exists in thousands in Morecambe 
Bay, the oyster catcher, is responsible for an enormous 
destruction of cockles, and they form a large portion of 
the food of sea gulls of many varieties. These are part of 
the destructive forces at work when the tideis out. When 
it isin, countless myriads of plaice and other fish are feed- 
ing on them. Any such caught on the banks will be found 
to be gorged with them, and from their multitude it would 
be well within the limits to say that the crop that man 
takes is a small quantity of the whole; and as man is in- 
cessantly taking the plaice and other destroyers, it almost 


follows that to allow a fair proportion of cockles to grow to 


43 


a fair size he should dosome of their work. This, however, 
I do not believe, as the three great laws of nature I named 
at first will keep things right. 

The destructive forces mentioned are, however, not all. 
How do we know? The answer is fairly simple. All 
shell-fish destroyed by birds or fishes will have the shells 
parted with broken to fragments. The birds either break 
up large specimens before eating them, or swallow the small 
ones whole, when the gizzard crushes them. Fishes crush 
them with the strong teeth they possess in their throats, 
but in addition to this, thousands of tons of whole shells 
are washed up by the sea, the fish having been destroyed 
by lower organisms such as the star-fish, whelks, &c., 
which feed upon them. | 

If we allowed the cockle-beds to rest, what would be 
the result? Nature would either increase her destructive 
powers, or the average individual growth would be re- 
tarded, and though there might be found a few larger 
forms which had survived the influence of the destructive 
forces to some extent, there wouid be no appreciable 
increase. to compensate for the enormous loss. As well 
might a farmer refuse to milk his cow for a week, so that 
she would have plenty of milk at the end of the time. 

The more man takes, the more room he leaves, and the 
more will grow to full size. Of course, 1 am arguing from 


the condition of things on these extensive banks. Laws 


44 


applicable to little fish-ponds, or small gardens, do not 
apply in the ocean, though the sea-fishery officers do not 
seem able to divest themselves of their petty ideas. If 
the cocklers are left alone, no more cockles will be taken 
than Nature can afford, for when it does not pay to get 
them, cocklers will obey the laws of Nature and cease to 
waste their time; but I feel sure if there was demand, the 
beds would yield a still larger harvest. 

So much for cockles. Let us try to see how the 
mussels are affected. But before dealing with them I 
should like to diverge a little, for, connected with this part 
of the subject is an interesting phenomenon that occurred 
‘some years since, and one which is occurring now, which 
I should like to mention. Also I-think something could 
be done with the mussels, but not on the Fishery Board 
lines. It is protection, not prosecution, that is required 
in this case. | 

The cry of damage to the fisheries by over-fishing is as 
old as the hills, and will, I expect, always continue. For 
some reasons not as yet understood, but which there is 
little doubt are as much beyond the control of man as the 
ocean itself, fisheries ebb and flow very much indeed ; 
for this reason a mere increase or decrease of crop is no 
proof of success or failure of any human laws. When- 
ever the ebb comes, the cry is over-fishing, destruction of 


fry occ. until the flood comes again, when everybody is so 


45 


busy and happy that the lean Years are forgotten. These 
ebbs and flows generally cover a fairly long period of time, 
a new generation to a great extent arises, and past history 
is lost in the present. 

When I was a youth very large quantities of haddock. 
were brought into Fleetwood by the trawlers, and they 
formed a considerable portion of the catch. The quantity 
gradually fell off until in the latter seventies and the early 
eighties, the haddock fishing was extinct, and not a fish was 
caught. This could not be ascribed to the poor shrimpers, 
for I never saw or heard of a young haddock being caught 
by them during all my fishing, and I am sure no quantity 
could have. been, or I must have heard of it. I offered 
handsome rewards for any that could be obtained, as we 
wanted them for the Aquarium tanks. After several years, 
however, and happily about three years before the present 
officials got to work, the haddock began tore-appear. The 
first year they were very small, better the second, and 
they improved until they again became an important part 
of.the catch,’ “They have so much increased in quantity 
that so far the present year (1899) is a record. They form 
at present such an important part of the deep-sea trawl 
fishing from. Fleetwood that, if they were not there, the 
results would be very poor indeed. ‘In size, however, 
there is a little falling off this year. Whether it portends 


the decay of the. fishing once more I cannot say. I say it. 


46 


was happily before the present Board was established, for 
it proves that their proceedings had nothing to do with it. 

In connection with the re-appearance of the haddock, : 
however, a fact of stupendous importance has taken place, 
and a witness appeared on behalf of the poor fishermen 
whose evidence I do not think even our’ scientists can 
neglect or misinterpret. Dame Nature herself has stepped 
into the arena, and with one grand operation has flatly 
asserted and proved the Fishery Board’s ignorance of her’ 
law and methods. It must be remembered that these’ 
gentlemen have obtained all the money and all their 
powers on the assurance that if granted, so far as legisla- 
tion on'size of mesh was concerned, a very large propor- 
tion of: the fish permitted to ‘escape would grow to 
maturity, and the fishermen would again take them and 
reap a rich reward for their enforced moderation. 

The fish which these gentlemen selected as the type of 
round fish, as shown in their bottles, is the whiting, and 
they are perfectly correct in this, for undoubtedly of all 
round fish, more small whiting are caught by the trawl 
nets than anyother valuable species. It therefore follows 
that of round fish this species should have prospered 
beyond all others, and after years of waiting the fishery 
should now be established ‘on a rich and substantial basis. 
Nature has replied to that argument in-her own way.’ 


Had there been a small-increase in the large whiting 


47 


fishing our scientists would have rejoiced exceedingly. Had 
there been a small decrease they would have argued that if 
their advice had not been followed things would have been 
worse; but what istheactualstateof things? Naturalcauses, 
as far, apparently, beyond our ken as infinite intelligence 
itself, have quietly removed from the Irish Sea fishing 
grounds, worked by the Lancashire boats from Fleetwood, 
the myriads of adult whiting which occupied them when 
these meddlers with what they do not understand took the’ 
fish of the sea under their patronage. At that time the 
average catch of each Fleetwood boat was reckoned in tons 
per week. To-day and fortwo or three years back only an 
odd box now and then, just enough to add to our mystifica- 
tion by showing that the conditions of the sea are such 
that whiting can live there. Commercially the whiting’ 
fishery is for the present, and for some time has been, 
absolutely extinct. Where are those countless myriads of 
whiting gone? Not only has Nature removed them from 
the grounds, but she has quietly substituted in equal 
numbers another fish, the haddock, whose early life history 
is more obscure than that of the whiting, and as if in 
derision of the claims of the scientists, a fish that even 
they cannot pretend to be influenced in any way by what 
man has done. | 
The fishermen demand that Professor Herdman and 


Mr. Dawson shall account to them-for the fruits of their 


48 
toil of which they have been so ruthlessly deprived. Where 
are the fish taken from us? You cannot argue about 
mysterious laws of Nature. You undertook that if these 
fish were released, they should be returned as a far richer 
harvest: Where are they? 

But another- very serious question arises to which an 
answer must be given. In the Fishery Exhibition we have 
before us now (in May, 1899) these young whiting are shown 
asa proof of the wisdom of these gentlemen’s proceedings. 
Are they so immersed in the vast importance of the question 
as to how many legs or other appendages a shrimp has, or 
the exact percentage of. grains of sand that a cockle 
swallows, that they have not noticed this stupendous 
phenomenon so destructive to all their theories. It has 
existed for several years. Surely they are not deliberately 
trusting to the want of knowledge of fishery questions in 
an inland town, and trading on it; and yet Ido not 
see how we: can avoid one of these two conclusions, — If 
they do not know they are condemned. If they do know, 
have they brought the matter before the Sea Fisheries 
Committee and put them fully in possession of this 
information. ° - 

Had nature chosen to act the other way, and had their 
meddling coincided with a great increase of whiting 
instead of haddock, what a noise would have been made 


throughout the world, Knighthoods or peerages would~ 


49 


have been too little honour for such demi-gods. But 
Providence has timed it otherwise. Did we choose to 
claim that first appearance demonstrated facts, we might 
certainly assert that these fishery laws had destroyed the 
whiting. We do not, however, act on their lines. We 
recognise old Dame Nature’s hand, and simply claim that 
$0 far as the fisheries are concerned, all this cost. and all 
this cruelty have no effect on the supply of fish, good or 
bad. 

Apart from this phenomenon connected with the 
whiting, experiments at Southport showed clearly that 
a year was sufficient to make most fish sizable ; that 
in the four chief groups three years would grow fish 
to an enormous size; shell fish as far as we have any 
data come under the same conditions, therefore in 
return for the heavy cost, and the vastly more serious 
moral. injury inflicted on our shore fishing popula- 
tion, we are entitled to ask at the end of eight years for 
some proof of the value of their work. 

We were told the fishermen would soon recognise the 
fishery officials as their best friends. Do they? What are 
the results? Fishermen discontented, bitterly complaining, 
risking fine and imprisonment rather than obey the law, 
the scientists complaining that their boats have no time 
for scientific work as the 13 bailiffs are so heavily employed 


doing police work. More men are wanted, more areas 


E 


50 
closed, ‘greater powers—they €ven aspire to close the whole 
Irish Sea—and more money, to be as I think I have shown, 

hopelessly squandered. | 
“What can you expect, however, when the affairs are 
directed by a gentleman who after some years’ experience 
can- deliberately and cones put such a eRe eee as this 

forward : — | 

. 3rd. «When the time comes, as it probably will, 
when it will be cheaper and surer to farm fish than’ to 
shunt them, when fish are bred, reared, and fed up for 
market, then fish food will have to be accurately 
ascertained and carefully cultivated, and all such 


statistics as those we are now accumulating will be of 
value, and receive their proper application.” 


‘Certainly the wildest scheme which ever was floated 
6n the Stock Exchange is the soberest common sense 
compated with such a proposal, as any one will see who 
will make a few calculations, and yet the lives and 
destinies of our fishers and their families are practically at 
the mercy of this scientific dreamer. And this is only one 
instance. There are plenty of equally absurd peopoea e in 
the Sea Fishery reports. 

Again, forty or fifty years since there was a most im- 
portant herring fishery in Morecambe Bay. I well 
remember the time more than 200 boats fished regularly 
every night during the season right in the bay, almost close 


up to the Wyre light. So 'important was it that there was 


51 


a regular boat-building industry. Vessels ‘were réitt 
specially for it.. But more than thirty years since the 
herring deserted the bay. Why, no one knows. Old 
fishermen say the artillery practice at Fleetwood’ and 
Morecambe was the cause. Certainly herring and mackerel 
are very timid fish. I have been out in Morecanibe Bay, 
off King’s Scarr; lying at anchor with a large ‘shoal ‘of 
mackerel playing on the surface ’and almost close to the 
boat. At thé boom of a gun fired from Fleetwood they all 
instantly disappeared, and I-saw no more of them, > I 
hardly think, however, that if food was plentiful the her- 
rings would desert, though firing late in the evening would 
probably make them very timid and spoil the night’s 
fishing. I fancy it is a question of food. The herrings 
have not absolutely deserted the bay. A few are caught 
in stake nets every year on Pilling Sands, and their fry, 
in the shape of ‘‘ whitebait,” exists in large numbers, 
Before the bye-laws were passed, I often made test draw- 
ings along the coast, with specially-constructed nets, to 
ascertain the state of things. These nets could-never 
have been used commercially. No fisherman would have 
helped me and taken part of the catch as his share of the 
day’s work. They could do no possible harm, and_ they 
yielded valuable results, but to prevent anything being 
known by the public except through such information as 


they edited and often misinterpreted, these drawings were 


52 


made illegal unless: used by a fishery official. With these 
nets I often got fine catches of whitebait, and it was with 
whitebait caught in Morecambe Bay that we solved at 
Southport the problem as to whether whitebait were the 
young of the herring, by the simple and conclusive process 
of growing them into fine herrings. .This was accom- 
plished in ‘two years, thus giving the rate of growth of 
another of our great food fishes. 

Personally I should not be surprised if the herring 
returned to Morecambe ‘Bay. They have deserted other 
places for many years, sometimes half a century, and then 
returned, and unless the artillery question has something 
‘to do with-it,, I see no reason why they should not return 
again. 

About sixteen years since, I believe, they made an ap- 
proach. I was dredging well out in the bay with an old boat- 
man (Fairclough); when we found the sea birds in countless 
thousands, such a sight as I have never seen before, or 
since; hundreds of Gannets, and countless thousands of 
Razor Bills,and Guillemots, beside myriads of Gulls. The 
birds were so tame that I could have struck them with the 
oars, all signs pointing to herring. This continued two 
days. We reported it to the boatmen, and some of them 
who had some old herring nets, went at night, and tried, 
and caught a few, but not enough to pay, and apparently 


the shoal thought better of it, and went elsewhere. 


35: 

Since the Fishery Board came into office, a severe: 
calamity befel the cockle beds, for vast quantities were 
killed during the terrible frosts a few years since. The 
cockle beds, however, owing to the operation of two of the 
great laws, namely, vast fecundity, and the capacity of; 
overcrowded specimens to develop their full growth, 
speedily recovered by natural means alone, without stop- 
ping the cockling. This is a phenomenon which we can 
understand, but our knowledge is only moved a step back.. 
We do not know why this specially severe frost came or 
why it worked so much destruction. Such a cause would not: 
affect the haddock, as down in the sea the frost has little 
or no effect; neither is it probable that any great calamity 
befel the fish, for they gradually died away, and after the 
lapse of years as gradually returned. My own view is 
that Frank Buckland’s theory was the correct one, that it 
is all a question of food, but this again only carries us one 
step back as long as we know nothing of the cause why 
special food should be plentiful for years, then cease, and 
again become plentiful. 

Since Mr. Buckland expressed this opinion, a case has 
occurred under our own eyes which confirms it. During 
my early days it was a very favourite amusement to go 
fishing in the channel at Fleetwood, and very good sport 
it was. -For.a great part of the year we could always rely: 


upon a gaod catch of codling up to two pounds weight, 


54. 
and fluke. In addition to this, there were always several 
boats trawling and getting. nice catches. The Fleetwood 
Channel is a small area, about two miles long from the 
Kanch Buoy to the Wyre light, and at low water, when 
alone the trawling takes place, not more than a quarter to 
half a mile wide. By-and-bye the fishing fell off, and in 
the latter seventies there was scarcely a fish to be caught. 
Over-trawling, of course, was the alleged cause, and if 
ever such a complaint could be justified it appeared 
probable in this case, as the area trawled was so small, 
though it had free communication with the sea. Coupled, 
however, with the disappearance of the fish was the partial 
exhaustion of the mussel beds, and even the ross formed 
by the annelids was greatly reduced, made little growth, 
and looked generally. worn and shabby. In 1880, however, 
I was rambling about the shore when I saw the whole 
place, every blade of sea-weed, every stone or bit of stick 
from high to low water covered with minute specks. A 
lens showed at once that they were very little mussels. I 
took a handful of sea-weed home, poured some boiling 
water on it, and so plentiful were the mussels, the size 
of a very small pin’s head, that I got half a teacup full 
of them. I sent some to Mr. Buckland, who recorded this, 
the most extraordinary fall of spat I have any experience 
of, in Land and Water. 1 also showed them with a lens to 


the local fishermen, telling them I believed next year the 


I> 

fish ‘would come back. ~The year following I went to Fleet- 
wood to investigate. The first sight that caught my-:eye 
was no less than fourteen boats trawling in the channel. 

The fishermen said they had never known such an abund- 
ance of fish. I cannot, however, do better than .copy the 
report I sent at the time to Mr. Buckland, which appeared 
in Land and Water. 


és aoe year I called your attention to the enormous 
deposit of mussel spat at Fleetwood, and, in fact, every- 
where that I have visited. I have just returned from a 
rather long visit to Fleetwood, and I have brought 
with me somé of the young mussels of last year, a few 
of which I enclose you. You will note that, like most 
forms of aquatic life, their progress during the twelve 
months has varied very much indeed. Some of the 
banks are far more advanced than others. I have 
made a careful. examination of the beds, and much as 
the prodigious fall last year suprised me, I am still 
more astonished at the sight presented now. Every 
inch of ground to which a mussel could anchor itself, 
even almost to high-water mark, has been taken posses- 
sion of. Scores of acres of gravel beds, which, with 
thirty years’ experience of the coast, I have never 
known as mussel beds, are now densely crowded with 
them. They have completely altered the nature of the 
shore, and over vast tracts where it used to be pleasant 
to walk and watch the living inhabitants of the sea in 
the tide pools, there is now a thick crust of mussels, 
with a substratum some inches thick of soft mud, into 
which one sinks ankle ‘deep. ‘It is an interesting 


56 


question what the mussels will do; at present there 
are iat least:ten where one full-grown one can live. . In. 
some places where the tide has great power, it. has 
(assisted by trawling vessels) worked through the mud 
under the mass of mussels, and lifted them bodily 
‘away; this only ‘appears to «distribute them more: 
evenly. Nature, however, is chard at ‘work setting. 
matters right. In the first place, .as d- predicted 
last year, enormous quantities of fish have made their 
‘appearance, ‘so much so that although the channel is 
- ‘only about twoimiles long by a ‘quarter-of-a-mile wide 
at low water, there are always several trawl. boats (on 
one day there were 15) at work, in addition to many 
boats fishing with lines, and yet there is no diminution 
of the supply. The fish are being largely assisted 
by other creatures; starfishes are especially plentiful. 
‘Another singular phenomenon attracted my attention. 
For a ‘number of years ‘past the ‘nars, or ross, ‘the 
curious sort of sand coral, built and inhabited by 
-countless millions of ‘annelids, has been in a very 
dilapidated state, ragged looking, and very rotten, as 
if'the worms had seen their best days, and were rapidly 
going down hill; now simultaneously with the great 
mussel fall, these 'nars have taken a fresh start, the old 
rugged lumps:are covered witha new regular growth, 
and ‘the ‘rotten parts have become consolidated and 
firm ‘to ‘the tread; ‘not only ‘this, but new ones -are 
springing up between the mussels over vast tracts 
‘which have never previously borne them. As a proof 
of the great vitality at present existing, I secured two 
young ‘whelks,—B. undatum,—evidently last year’s 
brood, each of which carried‘on its back a lump about 


at 


four inches high of living ross. I was much surprised 
to see it, as I was not aware that the building operation 
-was so rapid that the foundation could be laid on a 
moving object, and a building so high erected so 
quickly. The large crass anemones are also very much 
more numerous. In fact the whole shore has awakened 
in a most surprising manner. Why it should be so, 
what the connection is between mussels and annelids, 
I cannot make out; the fish are accounted for by the 
abundant supply of food. I presume the mussels and 
worms are accounted for by the same conditions suit- 
ing both; but what are these? ‘Heat and tran- 
quility,’’ so good for oysters, won’t do here, for last 
year there was neither, Again, the mussels are 
thickest and largest where the rush of tide is strongest. 
This year, though so very much warmer and calmer, 
does not appear to have yielded any fall of mussel spat 
worth naming.” 


-The year following I went again, and found the same state 
of things, but Dame Nature discovered that even all her 
ordinary destructive forces were not sufficient to keep the 
mussels in check. They had accumulated to a foot and a 
half to two feet thick in some places, so she called the tides 
to work, lifted them bodily, hundreds and thousands of tons, 
and threw them into the channel, washing them away to 
sea. This was the time referred to by some of the wit- 
nesses at the Preston enquiry, when they said eighteen or 
twenty boats from Morecambe, in addition to the Fleetwood 


boats, were gathering mussels, and gathering them so 


58 


small that they only fetched a shilling to eighteen pence 
per sack, and there was nothing for the fishermen. As far 
as this is concerned, the evidence falls by its own weight. 
All those boats with four men each would not have come 
from Morecambe tide after tide, and done the fearfully hard 
work connected with musseling, unless it had paid them 
well on the average, and if it did pay them, it 1 was certainly 
no harm, but probably a distinct gain, for if more had been 
taken the many acres of ground left bare by the tide might 
have retained their stock. The work is too hard,and the 
economical conditions too ‘strict: to allow men wantonly and 
for pure destructiveness to take mussels, and when. they 
are so plentiful that they can be got so as to sell them cheap 
and yet pay it is a distinct advantage to the community. 
There has been no such fall of spat since; though there has 
apparently beén no scarcity, and, the fishing has never 
fallen on the evil times of the latter seventies. 

Now, if trawling could trawl out a space open to the 
ocean, surely it should have done so in the narrow channel 
of Fleetwood, for so many boats must have taken a very 
large proportion of the fish out each time, but as man took 
them Nature supplied them from her reserves, over 
and over again, and wiil do so as long as there is the attrac- 
tion of food, whatever man can do. 

One thing might be done for mussel culture, though not 


on the natural beds. There are large areas in the estuary 


59 


of the Wyre so suitable for mussel fattening that if they 
could only be leased and secured to the fishermen, they 
would bring in a large revenue. Many years ago, when 
Mr. John Bright was Chancellor of the Duchy of Lan- 
caster, I brought this question before him, and he entered 
into it, but unfortunately he resigned office, and as I had no 
influence with his successor, the matter fell through, but 
surely our County Council might do something. 

Mr. Dawson now suggests the same idea, but his plan 1S 
to make the fishermen dependent even for this privilege on 
himself and his colleagues. Why cannot the Duchy of 
Lancaster lease the foreshore for this purpose direct to the 
fishermen? Better in my opinion even be without the 
privilege than put the fishermen still further under this 
authority. I have named several times the cruel and incon- 
siderate way in which the bye-laws are enforced. I givea 
sample, too bad to allow the magistrates to convict, copied 
from the local papers. 

The report in the Ulverston News of April 8th, 1899, 
is as follows :— : 

Before Mr. E. Wadham (chairman), Mr. B. B. Gardner, 
. and Mr. W. R. Nash. 
Removinc UNDERSIZED MUSSELS AT ALDINGHAM: 

A Victory FOR THE FISHERMEN.—James Porter, Robert 

Porter, John Shaw, and Edward Martin were charged 


at the instance of the Lancashire Sea Fishery Board 
with removing from a certain fishery on the 2oth 


60 


ultimo, a quantity of mussels less than two and 
a-quarter inches in length. Mr. Sanderson, of Lan- 
caster, appeared to prosecute, and Mr. Poole defended. 
John Wright, head fishery bailiff, stated that on the 
date named he was on duty at Moat Point, -near 
Aldingham Church, when he saw the defendants 
returning from the mussel bed at Roosebeck in their 
boats. When the Porters saw him they emptied six 
bags of mussels into their boat. On taking a sample 
he found that out of sixty-seven only ten were of the 
proper size.—Cross-examined: The mussels were got 
in deep water with rakes, and as they were brought 
up.in lumps they had to be dressed. To my knowledge 
it is not the custom to bring the mussels to the mooring 
place, dress them there, and take the small ones back 
the next day. I -never told Shaw or any other fisher- 
man that he was all right so long as he did this.— 
Wm. Thompson, another bailiff, stated that of the 
sample of Shaw’s and Ma rtin’s mussels, which he 
examined, seventy-four were small and nineteen large. 
Defendant had over two hours in which to sort them 
when coming up in the boat, and he considered the 
weather fit for the purpose.—John Hargraves, a third 
bailiff, confirmed this. In cross-examination he 
positively denied that in the presence of the defendants 
he had told them they were all right so long as they 
dressed their mussels at the landing stage and carried 
the small ones back next day. What he told Bailey 
was that they would have some small ones to take 
back.—Mr. Poole, in his address to the Bench, said he 
had never heard a witness give his evidence in such an 
unsatisfactory manner as Hargraves, who had.quibbled 


61 


and shuffled and lied in a most extraordinary way.— 
Mr. Thompsong No, no.— Mr. Poole repeated the 
statement, and added that there were scientific liars 
as well as other liars. He contended that there was 
nothing in the evidence to show that the mussels had 
been permanently removed from their natural bed, or 
that they had been appropriated for the purposes of 
sale. He called Samuel. Bailey, fisherman, Thomas 
Shaw, fisherman, and the four defendants, all of whom 
swore that it was impossible to dress the mussels at 
sea, and that the bailiffs had seen them being dressed 
at the mooring without raising an objection.—In such 
rough weather it was impossible to dress them at sea.— 
Bailey added that the witness, Hargraves, had on one 
occasion stated in the presence of Martin and Shaw at 
the mooring that if the mussels were dressed there, 
and made marketable, and the small ones taken back, 
it would be all right. Sometimes the mussels were 
loose in the boat, and at other times they were put in 
bags and used as ballast.—The Chairman: And did 
the officers ever interfere with you for doing this >— 
No, never.—Mr. Sanderson said the question was 
whether the mussels had been removed from the 
fishery within the meaning of the bye-law, and he 
called attention to the judgment in the Appeal Court 
of Justice Wills in the cockling case of Thompson 
v. Burns.—The Chairman: We have carefully 
considered this case, and from the evidence before 
us we don’t consider any breach of the bye-laws 
has taken place. The cases, therefore, will be 
dismissed. ; 


62 


. Now, sir, can we conceive anything much worse? The 
well- fed * Bumbles ” of the Sea Fishery" Committee, waiting 
comfortably on shore, know that fishermen’s wives and 
children have a bad habit of getting hungry even in 
stormy weather, and that husbands and fathers must risk 
their lives in wind and storm to feed them, see their op- 
portunity of getting “cases,” and seize it. I won't say 
more. The report is enough. ; | 

Finally, sir, let us enquire what the deep sea trawling 
fishery of the Irish Sea is, for all this cost and cruelty is 
avowedly in order that more large fish may be caught there. 
The position ofthe Irish Sea is precisely the same as a large 
ae Enormous quantities .of seed can be planted and 
grown to acertain age and size, but the amount of fish or 
full-grown plants, say, for example, cabbages, is regulated 
by the size and fertility of the fields. We find while the 
eoed beds are enormous along the coasts, the fields are com- 
paratively small. 

The law of retardation of growth, which I have explained 
before, seems to apply in this limited sea, and I think also 
the feeding grounds are not rich pasture. The beds can in 
no possible sense compare with the grounds out in the open 
sea. In its palmiest days, 30, 40, 50 years ago, the fishery 
was more important than it -is to-day, but 508 per se simply 
because of the economic conditions that prevailed, just as in 


those days our English copper and tin mines, or wheat 


63 


fields, &c., were of value; population was muchsmaller, means 
of transport were much inferior, demand for sea fish was less, 
the great ocean fishing grounds were many of them undis- 
covered, and, above all, steam trawling was unknown on a 
commercial scale, and'no means existed of preserving fish 
for more than a few days, consequently at this time it paid 
to fish the small Irish Sea beds for all they were worth. 
Yet even at this time the fishing fleet from Fleetwood, by 
far the most important of all on the Irish Sea, never num- 
bered more than 150 small boats carrying four or five men 
anda lad. To-day there are only 44, and during the life of 
the Sea Fisheries Committee, instead of a great revival, 
there is a steady decrease, for in 1890 there were 66, and had 
it not been for the benéficent action of Dame Nature referred 
to previously, in bringing such shoals of haddock off our 
coast, probably there would not have béen a dozen, as the 
catch of haddock, reaching as it does to a ton and more per 
day per boat, is the source of profit, and this is the industry 
supposed to be protected at such cost of money and indi- 
vidual suffering. Yet there is a great increase in the amount 
of fish landed at Fleetwood. Why this contradiction ? 
Something has taken place~ totally independent of the Sea 
Fishery Committee; though very lightly alludedcto by the 
scientists, it is of vast importance to our subject. Fleetwood 
has been thought by some of the Great Grimsby firms to be 


a convenient port for landing their fish, and a fleet of 50 or 


64 


60 large steam trawlers, 100 to 160 tons burden, fishing with 
nets go feet wide and more on the otter trawl system, as 
compared with the 30 to 50 feet nets on the old beam trawl 
principle, independent of weather and tides, fishing with 
double sets of gear, one set always down while the fish 
caught by the other are being sorted and the nets cleared, 
carrying crews of eight to 18 men, and steam power for 
hauling nets and doing all the hardest work, have found it 
paid to land their fish at Fleetwood for certain markets. One 
firm alone, to give an idea of the size of the fishing industry, 
had no less than 37 of these boats landing their fish there. 
But these boats are not fishing on the grounds protected (?). by 
Professor Herdman. ‘They are equipped to go further afield 
and reap the rich harvest of the deep sea beds. They fish 
off Iceland, off the Hebrides, anywhere; a thousand miles is 
no object to these grand productions of modern practical 
science. Again, the boats fishing for mackerel and herring 
off the Scotch coast now land a great deal of their fish at 
Fleetwood, and these great fisheries are so much more profit- 
able that more and more capital is finding its way into them. 
We might, of course, expect that only 44 boats fishing where 
120 to 150 fished years ago, the individual boats would get 
more fish, as they would be able to pick out the best bits of 
ground for themselves, and such is the case, though if it were 
not for the haddock even'this would not be so; but that it 


will not pay to increase their numbers is evident, or they 


65 


would increase instead of decreasing. So small compared 
with the great whole is the amount they catch that it has 
almost no effect on the trade. 

We find on investigation that even the towns of Lanca- 
shire itself do not rely upon this supply, but draw from 
Grimsby and Hull the products of the open deep-sea 
fisheries, and not only the inland towns but Liverpool, 
Southport, Lytham, Blackpool, Morecambe, Ulverston, and 
more wonderful still, Fleetwood itself. The principal fish- 
shop in Fleetwood is owned by the principal owner of the 
Fleetwood smacks, and yet his own shop receives its daily 
supply of fish from Grimsby, as the Irish sea fishery 1S too 
- small and unreliable to maintain a supply for a steady demand. 

What about the great towns of Ireland, more especially 
the coast towns, Dublin and Belfast, for instance? ‘These 
towns also draw their supplies from Grimbsy. Every day, 
about noon, two heavily loaded trains leave Grimsby to 
catch the Fleetwood and Holyhead steamers, so as to have 
their fish in Belfast and Dublin by next morning. The 
large Grimsby fish merchants are personal friends of mine, 
and have themselves given’ me the statistics. This con- 
dition of things has come to stay. » Professor Herdman and 
Mr. Dawson can do nothing to stop these wealthy com- 
panies. | Hiney, are not poor, helpless fishermen whom they 
can prosecute ad lib; nay, more, it will increase. At 


present very few fishing grounds are known compared with 
a Vise bas hoc! OTC 


F 


66 


the probable total, and we are certain that the limit in 
power and capacity of steam trawlers has not been reached. 
They are built larger and more, effective each year. Those 
built ten years ago are almost obsolete, and I venture to 
say those of to-day in another generation will be looked 
upon as antiquated. 3 
What then is to be done with our Irish Sea fisheries if, 
like our wheat fields, they can no longer be useful to supply 
the main wants of the population? They must supply the 
minor luxuries, shrimps, cockles, and comparatively small 
fish for those who love a tasty morsel. Already these 
fisheries exceed in volume many times the deep-sea 
fisheries, and employ many times the number of men. _ If 
protection was possible, it is the shrimp industry that 
should have it, and judging by the bottles shown by the 
Fishery Committee as the food of fishes, it needs it very 
badly, for the larger forms evidently consume an amount 
of shrimps utterly out of proportion to their own value, 
and we might take up a crusade against predaceous fishes 
in all stages, little as well as big, with far more justice than 
closing grounds and limiting the work of our inshore men, 
until actually Southport, which used to be called Shrimp- 
opolis, is drawing supplies of shrimps from Holland, 
when there are plenty at our cwn doors if the shrimpers 
are allowed to take them. The Lancashire Coast and 


Irish Sea Fisheries are -precisely in the position of 


67 


agricultural land near large towns, almost useless for growing 
wheat, it has great value for growing vegetables, supply- 
ing eggs, poultry, milk, &c., and our coast fisheries must 
supply shrimps, cockles, mussels, smaller fish, &c., for 
which there is always a large demand, and a large and 
valuable element in our population must be encouraged to 
find better means of fishing, not worried and harassed by 
utterly senseless prosecutions. 

It has always appeared to me extraordinary that when 
the Lancashire County Council got their powers they 
utterly ignored all that had been done before, and refusing 
to commence with such light as there was and work on 
from that, they commenced de novo groping in absolute 
darkness. Probably the members of the County Council 
were not told by their scientific advisers what had been 
done, though there were many sources of information to 
startfrom. I refer especially to the Government enquiries 
all round our coasts by Messrs. Buckland and Walpole, 
now Sir Spencer Walpole, K.C.B. In passing, let me pay 
a tribute to my old friend, Frank Buckland. It is the 
fashion among many of our modern scientists to sneer at 
Eee as a naturalist because his ways were not their 
ways. He was educated before the modern schools of 
biology assigned to themselves such vast importance and lost 
the study of Nature in microscopic investigation. As the 


eminent Japanese zoologist, Professor Mitsukuri, mournfully 


68 


exclaims: ‘‘ Nowadays it is very rare to read of the 
pleasures of a naturalist. Zoology and botany have become 
too serious a business to leave much margin for pleasure.” 
But if we understand by naturalist a keen observer of 
Nature, a passionate lover of her ways and works, a man 
with a capacity for interesting othersin her study and in- 
ducing them to do their best work and give the world the 
benefit of their knowledge, Frank Buckland has no living 
representative, and unless we except Gilbert White, of 
Selborne, we look in vain for his equal in his own line. 
His name will stand out for the work he did with his free, 
open, generous nature when many of the pitiful scramblers 
to be the first to announce to an astonished world some 
trifling discovery which they have made are forgotten. He 
was utterly incapable of launching forth as facts ill- 
considered guesses at the operations of Nature. Imagine 
what he would have said to the idea of closing a whole 
county’s seaboard to scientific investigation. 

I think no one who knows anything of the subject, can 
compare for a moment the two enquiries, in regard either 
to the scope of the enquiry, the value of the evidence, the 
analysis of the evidence, or the final judgment. Every 
scrap of real evidence since obtained, and the utter failure 
to obtain any good result by adopting a course in opposition 
to the finding of this court, has proved the correctness of 


their judgment. Their decision is rendered more. impressive 


6g 


by the fact that the Commissioners entered upon their task, 
if anything, prejudiced in favour of repressive legislation, 
and impressed by the idea that an enormous destruction of 
small fish was taking place, and that our fisheries were 
being ruined. 

Before 1878 we find Mr. Buckland writing in-season 
and out of season, in his own impetuous way, denouncing 
the fearful destruction of small fish, even introducing the 
question into his Salmon Fishery reports to Parliament, so 
eager was he for something to be done. 

In 1878, however, Government, impressed with the con- 
tinual outcry, appointed two commissioners. Buckiand was 
one, but with him they coupled Mr. Walpole, perhaps the 
very best selection they could have made, for, while a 
naturalist himself, Mr. Walpole was as cool and logical as 
Buckland was hasty and impetuous. He brought to the 
enquiry the mind of a trained barrister, educated specially 
to sift evidence, and to endeavour to extract the truth out 
of masses of conflicting statements. 

I will not weary you with all the contradictory evidence, 
it is all published in the Blue Book, but will confine my- 
self to quoting their conclusions arrived at after, as I have 
said, an enquiry not confined to the Lancashire coast but 
extending all round the British Isles. 


‘‘ The sea cannot support more than a certain propor- 
tion of the fish that are born, and there is no harm, 


70 


therefore, in utilising the remainder as food. The same 
argument might be urged against the eating of eggs or 
the eating of lambs, and the same reply might be given. 
But the world has long since made up its mind to go on 
eating eggs and lamb, and the reasons which justify it 
in doing so justify it still more in eating fish fry. 

‘““There is one argument urged against this view. 
which, however, requires consideration. If, it is asked, 
it be unnecessary to preserve the fry of sea fish, why is 
it necessary to preserve the fry of salmon? ‘The answer 
to the question may, we believe, be found in the distinc- 
tive habits of salmon and sea fish. Salmon are fish 
which migrate to and from river and sea. Sea fish are 
fish which live in the ocean. It is obviously possible 
for man to place some obstruction across a narrow 
channel in order to stop all or nearly all the salmon in 
their migration. But it is impossible by any device to 
surround or capture all the fish in the ocean. Salmon 
can be intercepted like the traffic which passes along a 
street. Sea fish can no more be intercepted than the 
traffic which crosses a plain. There is nothing easier 
than to place a turnpike gate across a road and to force 
all vehicles passing along it to pay toll. But a turnpike 
gate on a broad plain would be of no use. Nearly every 
carriage would pass it on one side or the other. 

‘‘ This example seems to us exactly to illustrate the 
distinction between a fish like a salmon frequenting a 
narrow channel during one portion of the year and sea 
fish which pass the whole of their life in the sea. 
Whenever the habits of any fish compel it to live 
throughout the year in a confined area to which man 
has access, or to pass once or more in any year into 


Tt 


some narrow space commanded, or being capable of 
being commanded, by man, laws seem necessary for its 
preservation. When, on the contrary, the fish live in 
the open sea, we believe that no such laws are neces- 
sary. 

‘¢ Tt may, however, be thought that all sea fish, or 
most sea fish, do come within the rules which have 
thus been laid down, since all sea fish, during the 
earlier stages of their development, draw in either to 
estuaries, or to the shallow waters which fringe the shore. 
But, speaking generally, there is no reason to suppose 
that the operations of man are making any sensible 
impression on the numbers of the fry even in these 
places, since there is no evidence that the stock of fish 
in the sea generally is decreasing. 

‘‘Complaints of a decrease of plaice and flounders 
were made to us at Furness, Ulverston, and on the 
north side of Morecambe Bay, and the decrease was 
almost universally attributed to the shrimpers, or to 
the neglect of the shrimpers to throw over the young 
flat fish at sea. It appeared, however, in the course of 
our inquiry that in the neighbouring estuary of the 
Duddon, where there was no shrimping, the decrease 
of flat fish was equally marked. It is fair to assume 
that the same cause is affecting both places, and as the 
decrease in Duddon estuary cannot be attributed to 
the shrimpers, it seems unfair to lay the blame of an 
exactly similar decrease in Morecambe Bay on the 
shrimpers.”’ 

And on further considering even the question of pro- 
hibiting the sale of small fish their judgment was as 
follows— 


ve 


‘‘Small immature fish are the food of the poor. 
Weight for-weight, immature fish are cheaper than 
mature fish, and, therefore, unless the clearest grounds 
for prohibiting it can be explained, their sale ought not, 
in our judgment, to be prohibited. The evidence on which 
we have formed the conclusions at which we have already 
arrived in this report satisfies us that these grounds 
have not, as yet, been proved to exist. There are no 
reasons for thinking that the supply of fish, taken asa 
whole, is decreasing; there are no reasons for thinking 
that the destruction of immature fish which is un- 
doubtedly going on is wasteful in the sense that it is 
diminishing the future supply of mature fish, and it is 
not proved, even in those isolated instances in which a 
decrease of fish may be traced, that the decrease is due 
to over-fishing. Those who have read Mr. -Lecky’s 
interesting history of the 18th century will probably 
remember that more than 100 years ago the Irish 
attributed the decreased supply of pilchards on their 
coasts to the new system of trailing (query trawling) 
which had then been lately introduced. Ata still earlier 
period, Bishop Wilson, the eminent prelate of Sodor 
and Man, ordered a general prayer to be offered up in 
the Litany, ‘That it may please Thee to give and 
preserve to our use the kindly fruits of the earth, and 
to restore and continue the blessings of the sea, so that 
in due time we may enjoy them.’ This beautiful 
prayer, which is still read every Sunday in the churches 
of the Isle of Man, is a clear proof that Bishop Wilson 
thought that the fishery needed restoring. More than 
forty years ago, Jeffrey, staying in Renfrewshire for the 
summer, noticed that there were no herrings in the 


73 


- Firth of Clyde. About the same time, a trawler fish- 
ing from Scarborough, laid three soles on the pier at 
that place with the observation that they were ‘ the last 
three in the sea ;’ while in 1837 a petition presented 
to Parliament declared that the fishermen of Scotland, 
Ireland, and Holland had -found out the breeding- 
places of the herrings, and had resorted there to catch 
them, and that since the discovery was made the fishery 
generally. throughout the West and North of Scotland 
had annually decreased. It is an instructive com- 
mentary on the petition that the yield of the Scotch 
herring fishery was actually increasing at the time at 
which it was presented, and that the yield is now more 
-than double what it wasthen. In the same way the 
* people who now complain of the want of fish in the 
~TIrish Sea forget that similar complaints were made by 
their ancestors more than a century ago. The people 
who ascribe the recent failure of the herring fishery in 
the Firth of Clyde to the introduction of circle trawl- 
ing forget that Jeffrey had noticed the failure before 
circle trawling was introduced. — There is always, in 
fact, a temptation to ascribe any failure in the yield of 
any particular fishery to some interference on the part 
Giimans o lihere is always a temptation to overlook the 
fact that the same failures periodically occurred when 
the operations of man, slight as we believe them to be, 
were much more imperceptible than they are now, and 
to ignore the consequent inference that failures have 
occurred in the past, and may, therefore, occur again 
in the future, from’ causes which man has been, and 
| probably still is, unable to control.” 


74 


A few years later, in the literature of the Sea Fisheries 
Exhibition, we find Sir Spencer Walpole declaring in 
reply to a statement that fishermen. decimated the shoals 


of fish approaching the shore to spawn :— 


‘‘ Even assuming it were possible, I doubt whether 
any harm would result. No one would think a farmer 
improvident who brought one-tenth of his herd annu- 
ally to market. A fish reaches maturity much more 
rapidly than an ox, and is some thousands of times 
more productive than a cow. Why, then, should it be 
improvident for a fisherman to do what no one would 
think a farmer improvident for doing? In short, 
though I doubt the possibility of decimating a shoal of 
fish, I should regard such a course, if it were practic- 
able, asabout the best use the fisherman could make of it.” 


And further— 


‘‘ While I am opposed on the one hand to the im- 
position of unnecessary restrictions on fishermen, so I 
am opposed on the other to all patronage simply as 
such, because I believe the best part of the British 
fishermen is the independence which they enjoy; and 
God forbid the independence which they have won by 
their own efforts should be taken away from them by 
the patronage of other people.” 


The same authority pointed out that the prohibition of 
trawling in the loughs and bays of Ireland had not resulted 
in an increase of the Irish fisheries. 

It is a relief, after reading the reports of the Lancashire 


Sea Fisheries Board, the assurance of superior wisdom, the 


Fa 


assumption of almost infinite ignorance on the part of 
practical fishermen, and the impertinent, patronising ac- 
count of how he teaches them their business of Professor 
Herdman, and the sickening account of the progress made 
in turning our free, independent fishing population into 
criminals of Mr. Dawson’s reports to turn-to this summing 
up of the case by Sir Spencer Walpole, a man who knows 
the men well, has won their confidence and esteem, and 
has taken the trouble to study the fishermen, their in- 
terests and characteristics, as well as the contents of the 
stomachs of cockles. 

It is a curious thing, but so completely has Mr. Walpole’s 
identity been obscured by his long and successful govern- 
ment of the Isle of Man, and since then his skilful conduct 
as General Secretary of the Post Office, that he is constantly 
referred to as ‘‘the late Mr. Walpole.’ Professor McIntosh 
himself falls into this error. He is, however, still very 
much alive, and will, I hope, enjoy for many years 
the well-deserved honours conferred upon him by his 
sovereign. 

| Sir Spencer Walpole, K.C.B., does not thinkit would be 
a good precedent for him, as a retired public official, to re- 
enter the arena of fishery politics, but he permits me to say 
that nothing has transpired since he and Mr. Buckland held 
their exhaustive enquiry round our coasts to alter in any 


way the opinion which he then formed. 


76 


Again, Dr. Day, C.I.E.,; who even our scientists quote 
as an authority, was on his return from India imbued with 
the same idea as they are. On his own account and at his 
own expense he made a careful enquiry round our coasts 
while preparing the material for his splendid work on British 
Fishes. The result was that he was convinced that no 
restrictions whatever could profitably be placed on our’ 
fishermen. 

Sir Thomas Brady, lately one of the. inspectors of 
Irish Fisheries, is strongly impressed with the same 
views. 

Professor McIntosh, on the Scotch coast, in his splendid, 
exhaustive, and convincing work just published, ‘* The 
Resources of the: Sea,” takes the same view. 

Mr. Dunn, the great Cornish authority on fisheries, 
largely interested in them pecuniarily, to whom their success 
is of vital importance, is pressing the same views on the 
authorities. 

Many others could benamed. Authority after authority, 
disgusted by the futility and cruelty of the legislation of 
the past 15 years, which finds its extreme on the Lancashire 
coast, and its wastefulness from an economical point of 
view, are coming round to the views so ably expressed by 
Mr. Walpole 16 years since, and so verified by the results 
of a policy opposed to his advice. The advisers of the 


Lancashire County Council seem to be almost the only 


Vy, 


people now left who do not or will not see light in the 
darkness. 

Something, however, in Mr. Dawson’s report seems 
more serious than all that I have so far said. It is the very 
first principle of law-making that the law shall be workable, 
and that it shall be effectually enforced. If not, whatever 
it may be it is useless and demoralising. But as we read 
Mr. Dawson’s reports we find the most pitiful complaints 
that with all the costly staff and means at his disposal he 
cannot efficiently ‘‘ protect the fisheries.” He needs more 
steamers, more boats, more bailiffs to patrol the waters in 
fair weather, and more to lurk on shore in stormy weather 
to entrap the unwary and storm-tossed men who have 
brought a few undersized mussels into quiet water. He 
says with such an inefficient staff he can only pay ‘‘ surprise 
visits.” This means that if these Bye-Laws are to be 
effectually enforced, and there is no middle course, we must 
provide Messrs. Herdman and Dawson with a fleet of 
steamers and other vessels, and a small army of bailiffs ; we 
must pay tens of thousands where we now pay thousands of 
pounds, and must be prepared to see hundreds of fishermen 
prosecuted where we now see- scores, until all spirit, 
independence, and life is dragooned out of them, and they 
are kept down by a literal reign of terror. But further, if 
this is right on the Lancashire coast, it is right all round 


England. The cost will amount to hundreds of thousands 


78 


of pounds in money ; but in the entire demoralisation of our 
fishermen, who shall count the cost ? | 

England has relied more than once on the free, 
independent spirit of these men, and dare she for the ssake 
of a few small fish stamp this spirit out? If it was proved 
that these laws did far more good than even their wildest 
advocates surmise they may do, would it be worth it? In 
my opinion our fisheries themselves are hardly worth it. 
But when the best evidence and the best opinions go to 
show that it is absolutely useless, are we in Lancashire 
prepared to give these men carte-blanche, and then to pay 
the bill? Are we prepared to take the responsibility of 
leading in this, as I think, thoroughly bad cause? 

You will perhaps say, then, do you propose to do nothing ? 
Certainly not. I should be a poor naturalist if I proposed 
we should rest satisfied with our present knowledge. Let 
the County Council, if they will, endow original research, 
but avowedly as such. Let us have as much interesting 
information as we can get about the denizens of the sea, &c. 
Nay, further, if by any chance any worker appears to be 
doing any honest work of commercial value, even ifit is the 
biologists of University College (if such a thing is possible), 
let us assist them for all it is worth. We area rich county, 
and can afford the capital for anything that is worth it, but 
all this can be done at a small cost compared with what is 


spent at present. 


79 


In regard to the work being done at present, what does it 
amount to, speaking commercially, and as a return for the 
great expenditure? Some monographs of semi-microscopic 
crustaceans, telling the number of their limbs, and giving 
pretty woodcuts of them; interesting accounts of how a 
great steamer set little bottles afloat in the various cross- 
currents of the Irish Sea, &c.; all which may be interesting 
in its way, and is valuable for our purpose, as it demonstrates 
their absolute ignorance of the very first elements of.their 
problem, but commercially is playing with the merest out- 
skirts of their subject. I fail to see the commercial use of 
repeating ad nauseum the examination of the stomachs of fish, 
and carefully noting the exact percentage of each kind of 
food found in them, unless for some special purpose. 

The general food of sea fishes was sufficiently well 
known for all practical, as distinguished from purely 
scientific, purposes, five-and-twenty years since. Judging 
from the bottles in the Fishery Exhibition, I should say a 
great deal has been forgotten since then. But what does it 
amount to? Fish, like Homo sapiens, have a wide range of 
diet, and each individual fish, like each man, gets his living 
by minding his own business and finding the best pasture 
he can. The diet of man is fairly understood, but suppose 
Mr. Dawson let down his net and took a dozen aldermen 
returning from a Lord Mayor’s feast, and then took a drag 


through a workhouse and captured a dozen paupers. He 


80 


would hand these over to Professor Herdman. The worthy 
professor would examine their gizzards, and we should, to 
be on all fours with the fishery reports, have a learned. 
explanation as to the percentage of turtle soup and venison 
fat in one series of subjects, and the brown bread and oat-: 
meal in the other, and some very sagacious remarks as to 
the evident superiority of the one diet to the other, gauged 
by the condition of the subjects, but cu bono, neither Pro- 
fessor Herdman nor all the County Council can arrange 
such a trifling matter as that paupers shall have the fare of 
Aldermen. Infinitely less can they do to provide fish in the 
sea in poor circumstances with diet to them ‘‘ aldermanic.” 
When we come to analyse commercially the practical 
work done by this costly institution, whether we take the 
pretty but pitifully meagre, as far as any progress is con- 
cerned, exhibition which is being hawked from town to 
town, or the reports presented to the Committee, or the 
result of ten years’ police persecution of the fishermen, 
and compare it with the heavy yearly bill and the vast 
means employed—the whole biological staff of University 
College, a highly-salaried Superintendent of Sea Fisheries, 
a small army of thirteen water bailiffs, a powerful, well- 
found steamer, sundry other boats, nets, and scientific ap- 
paratus galore ; astation at Port Erin, and another at Peel— 
it gives us one distinction. There is an old story of two 


little girls disputing about the grandeur of their ancestral 


81 


mansions. One for a minute or two eclipsed the other by 
-announcing that their house had a verandah on it, but was 
completely annihilated when her opponent retorted ‘that 
was nothing, their house had a mortgage on it.” If any 
inhabitant of some other county should crow over us, and 
amnounce that they have got the sea serpent on their coast, 
we Lancashire people can always proudly retort that we 
possess the mountain in labour that brought forth a mouse, 
and we go one better than the ancient fable, for our mouse 
is still-born. 

After forty years’ careful study of the question, both by 
my own work and that done by others, the more I see and 
‘learn, the more vast the problem becomes. I am convinced 
that the Great Author of the Universe, though He created 
man in His own image, and gave him vast mental powers, 
as He visibly only endowed him with feeble physical powers 
‘compared with His own, so in the realm of mind, He main- 
‘tains His own supremacy, and while He allows us to learn 
‘much, He reserves still more which we cannot fathom, 
and shows us our own impotence to control the great 
forces and influences of Nature. On land He gives us much 
power, and, to encourage industry and other good qualities, 
He makes the fruits of the earth-very much dependent on 
our exertions and industry; but in the open seas He 
gives freely of His bounty, and He shows us His own 


power and goodness and our dependence on Him by making 


G 


82 


‘conditions such that we can neither affect the supply 
favourably or unfavourably by any effort of ours. Or, to put 
it in other words, Nature’s laboratory or workshop, Old 
Ocean, where she manufactures the food fishes, &c., is on 
such a gigantic scale, and the portion our limited powers of 
mind and body can affect is so infinitesimal, that nothing we 
can do can seriously affect even this portion. In regard to 
the larger part, until we are qualified to take the direction of 
the great forces of Nature out of the hands of the Infinite, 
it is hopeless'to expect we can in any way affect it. 

It is an instructive fact that the results of original 
research, while of fascinating interest to us as naturalists, if 
they show us one thing more clearly than another, it is our 
utter helplessness to control matters. Probably no discovery 
in natural history is more startling in itself, or more conclu- 
sive in this respect, than the working out within the last two 
or three years of the early stages of the life history of our 
common fresh-water eel, a subject that has puzzled and 
interested naturalists since Aristotle’s time. I quote from 
Sir John Lubbock’s speech at the opening of the Inter- 
national Congress of Zoologists last year at Cambridge :— 
‘ Until quite recently its life history was absolutely unknown. 
Aristotle pointed out that ‘eels were neither male nor female, 
and that their eggs were unknown.’ This remained true 
until a year or two ago. No one had ever seen the egg of 


an eel, or a young eel less than five centimetres (14 inch) in 


83 


lencth. We now know, thanks mainly to the researches of 
Grassi, that the parent eels go down to the sea and breed in 
the depths of the ocean, in water not less than 3,000 feet in 
depth. There they adopt a marriage dress of silver, and 
their eyes considerably enlarge, so as to make the most of 
the dim light in the ocean depths. Certain small fishes 
found in the same regions had been regarded as a special 
family, known as Leptocephali ; these also were never known 
to breed. It now appears that they are the larve of eels, the 
one known as Leftocephalus brevivostris being the young of our 
common fresh-water species. When they get to the length 
of about an inch they change into the tiny eels known as 
‘elvers, which swarm in thousands up our rivers. Thus the 
habits of the eel reverse those of the salmon.”’ 

Now, sir, can anything in Nature be more marvellous or 
more interesting than this? But can anything more clearly 
show us our utter helplessness to control or affect even so 
common, so well known, and so accessible a form as the 
common eel? Even Professor Herdman, I fancy, would 
hardly propose that we should “ wattle off’’ a portion of the 
ocean bed 500 fathoms deep and feed Leptocephalus brevirostris 
on ‘ offal” to increase our supply of eels. Again, Professor 
Herdman’s own costly researches into the food of fishes, 
though they are very incomplete, and as far as they go only 
comprise investigations made and recorded twenty years 


since, must convince any practical mind of the utter 


84 

impossibility of ever realising his dream of turning sea-fish 
into domestic animals. Many of the creatures the fish feed 
upon are more mysterious and more beyond our ken than 
are the habits and breeds of the fishes themselves. We are 
not even in the very first stage of understanding them, but 
from the migrations of the fish and the fluctuations of the 
fisheries, we see how slight a change in food and surround- 
ings is of vital importance to their welfare. No, sir, Provi- 
dence knows His own vocation, and exercises His own 
powers. Happily for us, He provides enough for each, 
enough for all, enough for evermore, and a free invitation to 
take as much as we can. Having done so, let us eat with 
thankful hearts. | 

The fishermen have behaved nobly under the suffering 
they haveendured. Whatother industry or profession would 
have stood for ten years the arrogant and impertinent med- 
dling of pure scientific faddists? What other body of men 
would have remained patient and orderly while they saw 
their industry interfered with by rank outsiders? Which of 
us would allow our businesses, created entirely by our own 
unaided skill and energy, to be harassed and controlled by 
the scientific staff of a college, however eminent, if utterly 
without practical knowledge ? 

However, knowledge is increasing, and as soon as the 
public understand the question, the whole mass of legislation 


founded on dense ignorance will be swept away, and the 


85 


fishermen will once more be permitted to pursue their calling 
in peace. The group of pure scientists, who have for the 
last ten years sat with such disastrous results, like Sinbad 
the Sailor’s Old Man of the Sea, on the shoulders of our 
fishing population, will receive their due reward. When 
it is understood how great is the darkness in which they 
have presumed to legislate, posterity will give them a niche 
in the temple of fame as the fitting representatives at the 
end of the 19th century of dear worthy, honest, old Dame 
Partington, the account of whose efforts to hold back the 
tide with her mop for fear the sea beach should get wet, 


was one of the joys of our childhood. 


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