herrings of Norway, and the large herrings
imported from Newfoundland and Labrador, chiefly
or altogether caught by drag-nets, are admitted
to be perfectly well cured. The Scotch trawlers,
however, opposed generally by the curers, say
that they don't care to supply the curers, that
they can find a sale for their abundance of cheap
fresh fish, and that it was the cheapness of their
fresh fish that first brought down on them the
wrath of the curing interests. There were
found, however, thoughtful and disinterested
witnesses among the curers also. Thus, one
gentleman who had been a curer for forty years,
and a drift-net fisherman for twenty years, says
that of course his interest is against trawling,
which deranges the market, and brings in gluts
of fresh fish: "I have found, for instance, when
I came from the north with a good supply of
cured herrings, that the fresh market was so
glutted by the herrings taken by the trawlers of
Loch Fyne, that my sale was much injured.
But," he adds, "it is the interest of the consumer
rather than that of the curer which should
be consulted. I think trawling is an improved
method of fishing, because it is less noisy, and
not so likely to frighten the fish as hundreds of
drift-boats all at one place with their vast quantity
of netting. Why do you not allow fishing
to be practised in a way which is both cheaper
and better than the old plan? If land can be
ploughed, have you a right to compel a man to
delve it with a spade? If you can catch herrings
for sixpence a hundred, by the trawl, what right
have you to make the consumer pay two shillings
and sixpence a hundred for herrings taken by
the drift?"

In support of the accusation of the damage
done to drift-nets by the turbulent and heretical
trawlers, no evidence was offered, nor could any be
found in the fishery books and records of the police.
Long before trawling was thought of, in eighteen
'seventeen, the fishery officer wrote in despair:
"A considerable number of fishermen are
making complaints against each other for stealing,
and robbing, and committing depredations.
They are the most unruly set of fishermen in
Loch Fyne that are this day in existence."
And only last December, when there were no
trawlers to grumble at, the fishery officer
reported that, "Owing to the large number of
boats from different places, a large amount of
loss, by wilful and intentional cutting, was done
to netting." Between drift-net fishing and
trawling there might well be jealousy, when the
trawlers were the outlaws working a system that
demands of each fisherman a seventh of the
capital, and yields him double the gains of a
law-fearing drift-net man. And then the
occasional great hauls of the trawlers, cheapening
fish, spoilt the market, and seriously reduced
the profits of the drift-net fishers, and of the
large curers too.

To the occasional capture of herring fry, under
the system of legal repression, the trawlers
themselves plead guilty. No fisherman desires
to spoil his fishing ground, and they believe that
it is injurious to it to catch fry. But when
there was constant fear of capture by cruisers,
the inch-mesh to which trawlers, if their mode
of fishing be made legal, desire to be restricted,
was often unlawfully reduced in size, in order
that there might be less time lost in clearing
the meshes of entangled fish. But the scientific
men of the commission add, for their own parts,
"We do not attach the same importance to the
capture of young herrings as the local fishermen
do. On the whole of the east coast it is
the habitual practice to catch herrings ready to
spawn, each of which contains fifty or sixty
thousands of eggs, so that the capture of young
herring on the west coast sinks into
insignificance as compared with this general practice.
Besides, when we observe such an instance as
the continual capture, in the narrow waters of
the Thames, of white bait, the fry of a fish for
which there is a greatly increasing demand,
without apparent decrease in their propagation
by mature fish, we think that the objections
raised to the capture of these young herring
have been overrated."

As to the injury done by trawling in the
catching of white fish, that is nearly all gain to
the herring harvest: since cod, ling, coalfish,
hake, conger, and dogfish all feed upon herring,
and like it so much that herring is the only
good bait for the long line white-fishing, upon
which many fisher-folk, in Skye and elsewhere,
depend as much for winter food as they do on
the herring fishery for money. But the close
time, from the first of January till about the
end of March, deprives the fishermen of the
west coast of Scotland, of their bait, at the very
time when they require it most. To some
places, fresh herring can be brought from the
east coast, where there is no law of close time.
But the poor fishermen of west Scotland, who
need most to draw their daily food out of the
sea, and who are, in the close months, liable to
a fine of five pounds, and the confiscation of
their boats and nets—that is to say, liable to
utter ruin—for the offence of having a fresh
herring in their possession for which they cannot
lawfully account, simply are left to hunger,
while the herrings that they must not catch are
being eaten under water by the cod and ling. The
poor people of Skye complain that the restrictions
of law have been made to suit the views of
the large fish curers, who alone know how to
make their representations heard, and who, not
choosing to keep up their establishments on the
west coast during the winter and spring months,
when the fishing is not worth their while, are
unwilling that others should be allowed to fish
while they are off the station. The law has
caused the ruin of some families caught in the
act of procuring herring for bait. The poor
fishermen say that they themselves signed a
petition for close time, on the representation
of the curers that it would be for their benefit,
but they had no idea they were not to get
herring for bait. They all believe in a close time,
but some desire it at one season, some at
another, and the motive is usually found to be
a wish for protection against whoever or what-