NOT ILLEGAL

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 13, 17 January 1933, Page 5

NOT ILLEGAL

THE THREE-MILE LIMIT

Commenting last evening on the activities of the Australian trawler,- the Chief Inspector of Fisheries (Mr. A. E. Hefford) ' said he could not recall any regulation which would debar an . Australian trawler from, operating in . New Zealand waters. He said the Australian trawler -would certainly- have .to keep within -the limits"laid : down for local-trawlers, but the restriction : would seem to end at that. ' *{>■ consider our fishing grounds are rather better than those, off the coast of Australia," said Mr. Hefford. "1 ■ think the visit may have been influenced by rather glowing accounts of 'New Zealand's fisheries which have rel.cently appeared .in English journals. T.have readthese myself, and! suppose they would present a rather tempting picture to Australian /enterprise." Most countries regarded^ the threemile limit as covering territorial waters, but there was no universal agree- • ment. Eussia had endeavoured to down a twelve-mile^ limit, .and Norway • had proposed ten miles. In England some time ago legislative authority had . closed an area to English trawlers, and it had been foiind.that the law did not • cover foreign vessels operating within ■ the three-mile limit. "International law for water is" full of loopholes," Mr. Hefford continued. "We have -an -illustration in the whal- . ing industry of the difficulties which arise in. fisheries control. Until all nations can agree it is difficult to do much.". ■