Ocean Research and the Great Fisheries

Abstract

THE reconstruction spirit of the years 1918–9 was nowhere more evident than in its relation to the fishing industry. Even before the date of the armistice the owners of trawling and drifting vessels had met repeatedly and prepared a very noteworthy memorandum, which was presented to the President of the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries later on. At that time emphasis was very naturally placed on the importance of a highly trained fishing population in regard to questions of national defence, and the immediate object of the memorandum was to interest the Government in this and other purely economic questions. In 1919, however, a series of committees met at Fishmongers' Hall under the presidency of Sir Edward Busk, and detailed recommendations dealing with administration, publicity, education, and scientific research were prepared, printed, and circulated. A beginning was made with the work of consolidating the statutes relating to fishery. Later on the British Trawlers Federation was formed, and proposals for the creation, by Royal Charter, of a British Fisheries Society were drafted. The author of the book under notice was mainly responsible for all this organisation. Throughout the whole movement scientific research was kept in the foreground, and its absolute necessity in any possible scheme of fishery reconstruction was recognised by everyone concerned. It was understood that the industry itself was prepared to back financially a sound programme of scientific and industrial research, and, without doubt, such programmes of education and research would now have been in practice but for the wholly unexpected partial collapse of the fishing industry that occurred in 1920.

Ocean Research and the Great Fisheries.

By G. C. L. Howell. Pp. 220 + 20 plates + 3 charts. (Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1921.) 18s. net.