AROUND THE WORLD.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 171, 21 July 1928, Page 4

AROUND THE WORLD.

GOSSIP OF THE PORT.

WHALING.

It will be of great interest to New Zealanders to know that a company haa been formed in England to exploit the whale fisheries in the Antarctic OceanThe latest mail from Home gives full particulars of this venture, and as New Zealand is to be the base from which the whaleship is to work, particulars of the proposition will be eagerly looked for. The company proposes to equip two factory ships, of 20,000 tons each, capable of carrying 70,000 barrels of oil. A flotilla of fast motor launches will be attached to each factory ship to act as whale chasers. The company is to start operations next autumn, and it anticipates an annual production of oil worth £750,000. The project has a boldly confident and optimistic sound, and only those not conversant with latter-day whaling can doubt its chance of success. The whaling industry in the Antarctic has become more and more profitable in recent years, chiefly by reason of the many discoveries of new uses for whale oil and residues. Blubber oil, formerly almost exclusively used in candle-making, is now in increasing demand for toilet soaps. But the most valuable of the new uses for which blubber is sought is due to the discovery that it contains an edible fat of the highest nutritive value which is essential in the manufacture of margarine. In addition, residues which were not long ago thought of little or no use now provide lucrative side lines; the blubber, after the oil has been extracted, for example, i& now used for a high grade of cattle-feeding cake. It is curious, and at the same time lamentable, that the riches of the whale were unsuspected, or, rather, undiscovered, during the heyde.v of British whaling. The shifting of the whale fishing from one side of the world to another seems to have been the chief cause of the decline in the industry; and by not following up a trade in which she was easily supreme Great Britain has only herself to blame for her position now far astern of the Norwegians. For some years past New Zealanders have taken a passing interest in the diffent expeditions, all of them hailing from Norway, which have been operating in the waters around our coasts and in the seas adjacent to Ross Land. Only a few figures are available to show with what rapidity Norway is reaping her golden harvest. It has been reckoned that in the six years since 1921 upwards of four million barrels of oil, valued at more than £24,000,000, have been sold in the world's markets- It caused much surprise when the Press announced the fact that the big Norwegian whaling-ship the C. A. had a cargo of whale oil aboard valued at half a million pounds when she ran ashore on Stewart Island, and it will be of greater interest to know that this self-same cargo was sold in Norway last month for six hundred thousand pounds. Whaling has been speeded up within recent years to a degree that sets the pace much too fast for the whale. When the harpoon gun was first invented it was sufficiently destructive to drive all the whales from the Atlantic within a very few years. The modern weapon, with which the chasers of the C. A. Larsen were armed, _ kills with an even more deadly precision. The modern harpoongun, with its time-fuse bomb, Villa a t astonishing ranges. To this swift accuracy of the killing weapon has been added the service of the factory or depot ships, in which the blubber and residues are treated without recourse to shore factories, enabling the fleet to remain on the whaling grounds for much longer periods than formerly. It is not surprising to learn that there are fears abroad for the preservation of the whale species. The first note of warning of this mass-de6truetion, as it might Pf c 5.. ' was sounded by the scientists of the Discovery. Captain Scott's old ship, it will be remembered, visited the Antarctic on a voyage of research in 1925-26 Their investigation revealed that whales were being killed with appalling rapidity. They found thatwhere the annual catch used to total 3000, at the time of the Discovery s visit, the number had fallen to between 300 and 400. It was no doubt the report of the Dis-i covery s expedition, which led to the question being ventilated in the New Zealand Parliament, but no one there took anv serious interest in the matter A full report was made by Britain to the League ot Nations, and so serious was the matter looked upon by that great assembly, that a -Tu was charged with the duty of examining means for the preservation of whales. When the subcommittees report was furnished, Great .Britain and certain other Powers, including -Norway, were not in favour of legislation; but no fewer than 21 other States, all members of the League, were in favour Presumably, any international agreement will take the form of an enforced close season, or possibly a reservation in Antarctic waters that should provide a sa °ctuary for the leviathans of the deep. ~J t, ?as to be borne in mind, however, that the area of the ocean under discusf? rms , b ! lt , a pinprick in the waters that the whale is known still to frequent. In the Ross Sea, no doubt, whale filing has been carried on too drastically. In other portions of the Antarctic and in the M^, er P sout k °f South Africa adult whales still teem, according to authorities of repute. The whole story of the whale's retreat before man and his harpoons is one of the most curious chapters in the history of the sea. It would be interesting to know what were the causes which led to the decline of British whaling in the Antarctic, and equally informative to discover how it came about that this trade became if- . m ? nopoly of Norwegian interests which have grown rich and powerful in its pursuit. The decline in British whaling has been gradual. About 100 years ago whaling added very materially to the prosperity of qu it e a number of British porta. In the year 1821, for example, no lTw r ii i U whalers sailed from the port i i- a lone. In 1884 there were over 100 whaling ships registered in the ports of Dundee and Aberdeen. In 1911 eight whalers belonged to these ports, and two years later only one sea-going whale ship was registered in Scotland. There is no doubt that Britishers were the pioneers m the much more difficult and dangerous old-time and old-style whaling. British ships travelled throughout the seven seas of the world in search of the cachalot before the foundation of the Umted States of America, and the famous whaling fleets of New Bedford and Salem came into being many years after the Brittheir W fame S reac hed the height of It is gratifying to know that British enterprise and energy is again about to engage in the whaling industry. The formation ot this new British 'company ma Jj k % renaissance of this ancient ciaft and calling. There is a sense of fitness, somehow, in the thought that British ships and men will again go a-whaling ' n ,? f rs c m ,? de known to mankind by a handful of illustrious British seamen.