Where Are the Fish ?
1 he Fish Gate. t.y michael Graham. (Faber and Faber. zos."6d.)
WE all know that it is difficult and, sometimes impossible to buy
fish at the present time, and most -AT us presume that this the inevitable result of the limitation of supplies due to the small number of vessels now putting to sea. Or gve may put the blame on the much-discussed Zoning Scheme of fish distribution, and presume that all will be well again once the war is ended. Here is a book which explains the highly complex nature of the fishing Industry about which the general public is amazingly ignorant. I cannot recommend it too strongly, for it is written by an expert who has spent his life in studying fish, fishermen and the fish trade. Mr. Graham has the rare gift of making a living picture out of a subject which could be so dry and uninteresting if treated by an author who did not put human values first. His book is an attempt to solve a very difficult problem, better described as a tragedy—the rapid decline of British sea fisheries before the war, despite desperate efforts to stem the failure on the part of scientists, Royal Commissions, and widespread publicity. Free fishing had become unprofitable ; the sea was being overfished, yet " In seas near home the stock of trawlable fish was no longer at paying level ; farther afield the Arctic ice checked that expansion to new grounds by which our industry has been built up ; and autarky in eastern Europe found little space for our exports of herring. Free fishing failed everywhere."
Mr. Graham's study of commercial fishing is by far the most important contribution to the solution of this problem of a particular food supply which has appeared in recent years, for he considers the whole structure of the industry in modern conditions, What is even more remarkable than his theoretical knowledge of the subject is his understanding of the human factor ; his sympathy and insight into the lives of fishermen, fish buyers, fishmongers—and even trawler owners. He knows the ins and outs of the fishing industry from beginning to end • from the spawning of fish at sea to their final appearance in cooked form on the dinner table or in the fish and chip shop. We are given impressions of small fishing villages round the coasts of Britain, where primitive methods still survive. We can picture life on board herring drifters, North Sea trawlers, and in those ultra-modern vessels that go trawling in Arctic waters, where "only the best is good enough: the pick of men, excellent wireless sets, with operators ; bathrooms, steam heating,. direction- finding apparatus, plenty of space, the best of food, unlimited fishing gear, ships to be proud of when they nose their way back into the dock, with a thousand pounds'-worth of fish under their batches."
Then as a contrast there is a stark narrative of derelict fishing
villages, shrunken markets and widespread unemployment. Mr, Graham deals with the sea fisheries of other European nations, which cannot be ignored, for in any future planning of our own fishing industry, the international problems mist be considered. He devotes more than fifty pages to a highly scientific study of the life-history of fish and fish foods. His final conclusion is that only by limiting the effort will profit be restored to fisheries. " It is a difficult problem—how to institute control, and yet leave this industry freedom, without which it will die of boredom. . . . To compensate
for the tendency that all control has to suppress individual firms, let us deliberately encourage everything individual: give privileged places to men to land inshore fish, to skipper owners, and perhaps to smali managing owners, just as we encourage smallholders. Any system starts by recognising the relative magnitudes of existing firms in the business, thereby giving permanence to a success that may only deserve to be temporary. Let us reduce that evil as much as possible: instead of keeping out new men, let it be- ruled that anyone can win a place by raising existing standards. building a better ,ship by Lloyd's classification, or making improvements in preserving or handling, or a new line of markets."
Living in the midst of a fishing community myself and in daily contact with fishermen, I feel like Mr. Graham, who says: " I am writing of what I cannot see clearly, but this at least is certain, that there is in all the world no enterprise but the enterprise of individuals ; initiative springs not from boards nor committees, but from men, particularly young Men who are allowed to plunge their way amid their mistakes." But how are we going to preserve a race of fishermen when practically nothing is done to encourage any fonn of sea training? Why is it that, unlike most other North European nations, Great Britain has no fishery schools? Nothing is done to educate lads to become fisherthen ; in fact, everything is done to divert them from going to sea as their fathers -and grand- fathers before them. "There is the Civil Service," remarks Mr. Graham, " as we know so well: our pride maybe, but hardly our joy—and no place for fishermen. - . Can we keep the blood in fishing—keeping competition, reward according to effort, good luck and bad, the chance of the villa and the gutter? If we can do that, I think that the lads would grow into fishermen, not pensioners, into English eccentrics, not docile dummies, productive of nothing." So all we can hope is some form of fishery control after this war which will foster individuality and character and not suppress freedom of initiative even more than at present;- in other words, that there may be an organisation of liberty for ttik'vital source of food supply to our country. Mr Graham supplies an excellent bibliography, but I cannot resist pointing out the omission of the only really authoritative work on our fisheries, which was puttlkihed at Stuttgart in 1929— H. M. Kyle's "Die See5scherei von 'Crrosbritannien and
Irland-
one of the volumes in I.Aibbert and Ehrenbaum's magnificent series devoted to the sea fisheries of North Europe. The fact that it is necessary to consult a German book in order to gain any thorough knowledge of British sea fisheries is more than enough to- prove how little we care about the fish in the sea, the men who catch them, and the trade which brings fish to our tables.
PETER F. ANSON.
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