ROMANCE OF WHALING

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 190, 14 May 1928, Page 6

ROMANCE OF WHALING

BRITISH INTERESTS TO RE-

ENTER INDUSTRY

Dominion Special Service.

London, April 5.

Although for centuries Britain has taken au active part in whaling, tiie industry has become virtually a monopolj’ in the hands of the prosperous Norwegian interests. So far back as the year 1630, three ships were sent out from London to jgo whaling off the coast of Greenland, while in 1821 no fewer than 61 whalers set sail from Hull. Dundee became the chief British whaling port, and as late as the period 1893 to 1911, whaling was still undertaken by an average of seven or eight vessels. B.v 1912 there was only ;i single whaler sailing from Dundee. In 1892, a Norwegian, Captain C. A. Larsen, sailed to the Antarctic in search of whales.

Captain Larsen, who is iiferhaps the greatest pioneer of modern South Seas whaling, had been whaling since ISS4, when he limited the bottlenose whale in the Arctic. In 1904 he set sail for South Georgia, and established a whaling factory in King Edward’s Cove. Some idea maj r be obtained bf the wealth brought about by Larsen’s pioneering work, for statistics show that the value of Avhale oil and other products in the South Georgian a’i’ea alone has risen from £251.077 in 1900, to £1,100.000 in 1917; in 1922 the value was £3.05G.800. £4,000,000 in 1924. and £5,750,000 in 1925. Influential British interests are now engaged in completing arrangements to enable this country to regain her rightful place in this ancient industry.