THE FISH SUPPLY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LV, Issue 16925, 10 August 1918, Page 10

THE FISH SUPPLY.

Througli tha operations or the trawlers an average of 60 tons of fresh fish is brought- into the city even- week. Are the people going to he deprived of this food, and go back to a hook with si' bait on it to feed 120,000 people?' We may as well do away with farm implements and ploughs, and go back to the shovel. Trawling is the most up-to-date method for catching fish. No other place in the world lifts such a vast area of water closed for trawlers as is at present in the gulf. The three-mile { limit is fixed in England only to : keep foreigners from coming too ! close to Britain; not because ttawling j did any harm to the fisheries. Thousands | of trawlers have been operating around ! Britain during the past 40 years, and | England depends upon its fish supply ' from this method of fishing. TlieJ'o ' should be no restrictions on triwlcrs in ' ooi' waters; the whole of the gulf should :be thrown open. Then the people would ; get cheap fish, canning factories snd fish j manure plants would be. star! ,d. and Auckland would become one of die largest fish ceetres in Australia and New Zealand. Mr. Barnslev complains about the price of fish caught by the trawlers. He does not say what the price would have been if it had not been for the up-to-date method of trawling. The trawl fish are sold to-day nt the same rate as was paid ••o hook and line men heforo the war. J With a rise of over 100 per cent, on benzine, nets, lines, hooks, etc., the ' people may judge what price the fish would have been to-day if trawling had not been in operation. Devonport. Gilbert S/nfcrd. Sir,—lt is clear to everybody that we are paying a tremendous price'for fish- , almost a prohibitive price. Why is it? i Who is to blame ? Before we had ! trawlers, before the City Council took a j hand in fishing, before the Fishermen's I Union came into existence, when Maoris 1 and. European line-fishermen fished to sell, we had cheap fish and plenty of it. It would - .be absurd to blame the trawlers, or the City Council, or the Fishermen's Union without proof that they are entirely to "blame for it. but somebody or , something is responsible. Let us hare it \ out. Who is to blame The public must i be represented on the proposed commis- | sion of inquiry. The Hauraki Gulf bej longs to the people, not to a few fishing traders, who fail to supply us with plenty !of cheap fish. Evidently the trawlers and ! line-fishers are at variance and possibly i trying to thwart each other; but the public has to suffer in high prices and by a scanty supply of fish. F. G. Ewixgtox. ——————