FOREIGN FISHERMEN IN NEW ZEALAND.

Press, Volume LXII, Issue 12203, 25 May 1905, Page 5

FOREIGN FISHERMEN IN NEW ZEALAND.

HOW THEY WORK AND LIVE. (SPECIAL TO "TIIE TRESS.") WELLINGTON, May 24. Tho fish supply for Wellington city land districts is gathered mainly by Italian and Greek fishermen, whoso primitivo settlements aro to bo seen in various sheltered little hays on the coast between Wellington Heads and Porirua. Mr Milase, tho manager of tho Wellington Fisheries Company, who is interested in tho Italian fisherman, advocates tho establishment of a municipal fish market. "It is a necessity for tho people," ho says, "and if it is not arranged seen there will arise a fishing ring in Wellington, which will have a monopoly hard to undermine. A company with £2000 cash could, after tho first year, control the whole of tho fish supply, and iorco tho prices to where it pleased. Have a municipal market wJiero tho fishermen can sell their fiVli to a public that would, becauso of the market, have a great desiro for fish, and the price would be below a penny a pound. To-day wo sell an 81b or S)lb warehou for Dd, but in tho market tho retail price would not ho above Gd. It would be ?o becauso all that tho fishermen caught would bo sold. At present thousands of fish aro wasted. There is another need, and this cue is for your Government's notice. Somo fish should be protected just as somo of the birds and oysters aro at stated times. Take the blue cod, for instance; that fish docs not got a chance. It is always being raked up, smoked, and sent away. It is what you know as the smoked fish, and within three or four years, without somo protection, there will be none left. There is a limit of weight under which it must not be tiiken, but where is the supervisor or tho inspector? Look, too, at what you would cull the comedy of tho imported tinned fish. You have sprats, mackerel, herrings, warehou, hapuku—all good fi.h for tinning, but a prophet or "a fish in his own count ry is no good. You must have him from mine other country." Round about Wellington there aro seme tony Italians engaged in fishing. A "New Zealand Times" reporter, who has spent a tendays of auventure with some of the.se fishermen, fiom whom ho received every hospitality, gives a very interesting account of their lite. It is a healthy, bnt a very hard life. Once a month only these people come to tho ciiy to receive wiiat money is due to them. Tlk-.v stay but a tew* hunts, and return to the endless monotony ot work and sLcp, work and sleep, "day by day, week by week, month by month, and year by by year. A dog's life? Aye, not so good as the lile of many a dog. Few. of them can speak English at all, and others but very slightly. The men at Onariu livo by themselves; that is. there are no women. There are one or two of them who are married, but their wives are home in Italy. The men save what they can, but—"Dear God, we earn so little." He who has -ICO at the end of three or four years has been in the vicinity when luck wa.s distributing favours after years of hardship, and being chained to labour as a galley-slave to the oar. Some return to Italy with their savings, others send for their wives and children. Practically the only oxpen-o the fisherman has is that in* connection with his boat and nets. Extreme care is taken of them, for the boat is the man's |jfe and the nets are his living. Probably no other calling has so much variation of luck. Day after day. perhaps, a man will toil and return to the home beach with a dozen fish. On other days he will return with 300 or 400 hurdles valued at £6 or £7. Again he will get nothing and lose his nets—valued at £10 or £15. Tho record catch at Ohariu amounted to 20.000 fish, mostly warehou. No rest and but a crust that day. The average hour— worked in a week number eighty or ninety.