FISH AS FOOD.

Manawatu Standard, Volume 9189, Issue XLI, 14 April 1910, Page 3

FISH AS FOOD.

The New Zealand Herald is of the opinion that if the Government would let fish and fishermen alone, there would be an abundance of cheap and wholesome food upon the tables of the people. But the Government evidently imagines that it must justify its departments by issuing all manner of prohibitive regulations, and has so regulated fishing that fish can hardly be bought. We have a close season fol' mullet, and men are heavily fined because the mullet insist on being caught in schnapper nets; we have trawling forbidden in waters where trawlers should be _ encouraged, and the result is that this promising industry has been killed; and we have Rotorua waters overstocked and Taupo waters threatened with the same deteriorating influence; because the Government allows trout to be caught and wasted by the ton, but will not permit a trout to be marketed. If the outcome of all this were cheap and plentiful fish there would be no more to be said; but the outcome is exactly what might be expected fromregulations made by inexperienced Ministers, who make hole-and-corner advice the basis of sweeping regulations. Trawling should be permitted in the Gulf; close seasons should be reluctantly gazetted and liberally interpreted ; and trout should be placed on the market —fresh, salted, or tinned—so that the lakes may be kept in hand and the fish saved from the dwarfing which accompanies overstocking.