THE LESSON OF THE GRIMSBY STRIKE.

Press, Volume LVIII, Issue 11131, 25 November 1901, Page 4

THE LESSON OF THE GRIMSBY STRIKE.

Although an agreement has been . come to in connection with the dispute which caused . such distress among the Grimsby -aherfolk during the past few months, there is no finality -boot the settlement The prob-tma which caused the stoppage of work have stall to be solved, and consequently* trouble may occur again at any time. The steam-trawler, which has revolutionised the fishing industry on ' the English coast, is declared — be the original cause "of the dispute. Trawling is still in its experimental stage in New Zealand waters, but should it cause a "boom" in the fishing trade ac at Grimsby, it will be well to -take a lesson from the experience of that -unfortunate town, and avoid the methods through which its whole industry has been allowed to get into a' thoroughly rotten state. At the present time, in spite of the enormous harvests brought in from the Northern Sea, the Grimsby boats spend more than they earn, and the future prosperity of the town will depend, it ia said, upon a thorough - reformation of the whole system. The fact is, the Grimsby trawling industry proved so lucrative that it multiplied out of __ reason j and as the numbers of boats increased, do did the sun of the nets. The newer boat-, says one authority "can trawl without wind or "against it; they can; move backwards and "forwards over the ground, and they can "drag the trawl at a much greater depth " than the old boats." The largest boats ! range from 120 to 200 ions gross register. They have powerful engines, sod can carry ;as muoh as 150 tons of coal in their I bunkers. So, too, with the nets: in a ! large trawler the ground rope is now 180 ft. [ long, and the ufpper one 120 ft, while the height of the net's mouth is 14ft, The oatching capacity is, therefore, six times as great ih size as it used to be. The result of these developmeots was that the North Sea was overfished, and the boats had to make longer and longer trips— sometimes a thousand miles from home— to get a cargo. This meant more expense, and inferior fi_», for the "catches" around Iceland and off Norway do not compare hi quality with the North Sea Jish. Still, the boate continued to multiply, however, and out of the increasing competition arose all sorts of roalpracfcices which brought the whole industry into a lamentable state. It is unnecessary to enter into details regarding the dispute between the owners and the men, which has now been referred to arbitration. The experience of Grimsby has emphasized the fact" that steam trawling, carried to unreasonable limits, can easily result in the depletion of home waters, and in the end bring a flourishing and lucrative industry into disrepute. If steam-trawling is established in New Zealand waters, care will have to bo taken to guard against overfishing, although with our J.knited population there is not the same temptation to _tah* this mistake as exists at Home. ' ■ .' '