GRIMSBY TRAWLERS. SEIZED BY GERMAN CRUISERS.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVII, Issue 117, 19 May 1909, Page 7

GRIMSBY TRAWLERS. SEIZED BY GERMAN CRUISERS.

NO GROUND FOR ARBITRATION. THE INCIDENT CLOSED. 3y Telegraph.— Press Association.— Copyright. LONDON, 18th May. In the House of Commons yesterday, Mr. Mackinnon Wood, Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, replying to a question by Sir George Doughty, Liberal-Unionist member for Great Grimsby, stated that the German Government was of opinion that the seizure of the British trawler General in the North Sea in May last year was justified, although the captain was Acquitted on a charge of illegal fish"ing. Germany also claimed that there was no ground for payment of compensation. Mr. Wood added that nothing further was possible in the circumstances, and there was no ground for arbitration proceedings, as Germany had paid for the damage done to the trawler. The seizure of the General was only one out of a series of incidents arising out of interference with the fishing industry. In May of last year the Grimsby trawler General was "held up" by the German warship Zielhen, and her captain arrested foi alleged illegal fishing within the German limits. It was stated that the incident was the outcome of unwarrantable zeal on the part ofthe German warship, which fired across the bows of the trawler to bring her to a stop. At the official enquiry into the case at Hamburg, tho German authorities 'came to the conclusion that the General had not been guilty of pursuing fishing operations in German waters. The captain and the trawler were thereupon released and returned to Grimsby. It is stated that tbe General had had her gear stowed away some eight hours when seized by the Ziethen. At the beginning of July there was some excitement at Grimsby and Hull owing to the activity of the German fisheries protection torpedoers in harassing and seizing British trawlers. Sir George Doughty, M.P. for Great Grimsby, in a letter to Sir Edward Grey, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, suggested the sending of a training squadron to cruise the fishery grounds. According to the Geinians, the disputes weie in regard to the exact position of fisheries, and were d;ie lo the British fishermen's obsolete charts. Among allegaticns made by Sir George Doughty was one to the effect that German torpedners were in the habit of pouncing on British fisherboats, compelling them to salute the German flag, and then taking the boats to Cuxhaven, where the fish were destroyed and the shipping geiu confiscated. According to the German press, the f'&hing-boats were misled by obsolete charts. The Cuxhaven correspondent of the Lokalanzeiger, on 3rd July, gave the following as authentic details :—: — "The captain of the English fishing steamer Arcadia had an obsolete chart on board, in which, for example, the Kugalbake was shown as a beacon, though this" beacon has not been lit for many a long year, and the Bake is now only a daylight seamark. The captain stated that, according to his calculations, he was sailing seventeen miles from the coast, and as German jurisdiction extends only three miles seawards, he could not have been within it, and the arrest of his steamer should not have taken place. Opposed to these conjectural, and therefore by no means trustworthy, statements is the precise deposition of the commander of the fishery torpedo-boat S 42, Lieutenant Neubauer, with its exact specification of the Arcadia's position within German jurisdiction. Three Grimsby fishing steamers, the Taurus, Margate, and Zennor, which were seized before the Arcadia, raised no protest. The captains contented themselves with excusI ing their action by the inaccurate charts which they had on board. It is otherwise with the Grimsby fishing steamer General, which was captured on 10th May, near Nordervey, "by the fishery cruiser Ziethen, but had to be released again for lack of proof. The owners of this steamer have since lodged a claim for compensation for loss of time, ets., to the amount of £1400. They also demand the costs of repairing the damage entaibd by the steamer running intf> the breakwater-head as she was being brought into the new harbour at Cuxhaven by the crew placed on board by the Zeithen." Subsequently, in August, Captain Heywood, master of the Grimsby and North Sea Trawling Company's trawlin? .strainer Taurus, was charged a'i Flensburg, in Prussia, with fishing with* lin the German three-mile limit. The skipper was so positive that his position was outside the limit that, when the commander of the arresting gunboat declined to listen to remonstrances or examine proof that the Taurus was right by her bearings and chart, he went to the expense of briefing a leading German advocate to conduct his defence. The court found against the Taurus, imposed a fine of £15 on Captain Heywood, aud ordered the confiscation of his ship's trawl and catch. It was alleged at Grimsby that when the Taurus was pliieed under arrest she was stripped of everything movable connected with fishing operations — an unparalleled prot-ediire, involving a loss lo the owners of £200.