FROM NORTH OF TWEED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22398, 20 October 1934, Page 23

FROM NORTH OF TWEED

A LETTER TO OVERSEAS SCOTS Written for the Otago Daily Times. By Robeet S. Angus. EDINBURGH, August 30. Serious as the position of the herring industry has obviously been in recent years, few except those engaged in it realised that it was so urgent as is disclosed by the report of Sir Andrew Duncan and his colleagues of the Sea Fish Commission. Their analysis of the situation is sympathetic but searching, and their recommendations are drastic. They entail the establishment of a Herring Board, which will control the trade at every stage from the time the fish are caught until they reach the consumer. Thus the highly individualistic and competitive basis on which the trade has been carried on hitherto will disappear. More serious still is their conclusion that the industry must be curtailed ; the size of the fleet and.therefore the number of men they employ—about 15,000 at present—will have to be reduced by the scrapping of the older boats. But the commission sees no alternative. “ The inescapable aqd major issue of redundancy overshadows the fishing fleet and its personnel. To allow the fleet to continue to adjust itself by a process of attrition would be in our judgment a cruel and wasteful policy, and would at least delay, if not frustrate, the' objects sought to be achieved by other ameliorative measures. If the 1933 catch had reached pre-war dimensions, at least one-third of the fleet would have been redundant in that year. Orderly contraction is imperative.” FINANCIAL INCUBUS. These are grave words, but a careful reading of the report shows that they are justified. As compared with the years immediately before the war, the gross produce of the industry has fallen from £3,700,000 to *2,100,000, and over a 20-year span exports dropped by 55 per cent, and Home consumption by 45 per cent. Tlie commission’s accountants, on an examination of the accounts of 450 boats, found that 357 Of them were in debt to the fish salesmen to an aggregate of over £200,000, apart from their indebtedness to (the) banks and otherwise. At one port the indebtedness amounted to £IBOO a boat. Earnings showed a corresponding decline, and for the share fishermen often amounted to a few shillings a week. The Scottish fleet—about two-thirds of the whole — is handicapped by the fact that it is owned mostly by the crews, who have not the financial resources to carry them through a bad time, and still less to recondition and replace vessels which are out of date. These grim facts mean that many of the little North-Eastern towns, outwardly so prosperous looking, with their stone-built cottages and trim gardens, are threatened with ruin. HERRING BOARD’S POWERS. The commission recommends the establishment of a board of eight members, with its headquarters in Edinburgh, empowered to license the boats, the auctioneers, the curers, and the kipperers, to lay down conditions for all of them; to conduct the whole of the export trade, and to devise measures for the expansion of the home demand. It is admitted that the Northern European markets, which used to absorb the surplus catch at good prices, are never likely to regain their former dimensions, but the commission believes that much can be done to stimulate home consumption by better methods of preservation and treatment, better salesmanship and faster transport. They see no reasop why home consumption should have fallen so markedly during the last few years or it should not be revived. GOVERNMENT ASSISTANCE. Even since the'report was issued, its conclusions have been reinforced by the statement that the 200 Buckie drifters have this season made an average loss of £BO each on an eight weeks’ fishing. It is evident that the subsidy which the Government has undertaken to give this year will be fully required, and that further financial aid will be needed. The commission suggests a grant of £50,000 to compensate owners whose craft will have to be scrapped; £125,000 to finance the transactions of the board during the next two years; and the guarantee of a loan of not less than £BOO,OOO for the reconditioning of the fleet and other development purposes. The scheme will be considered at a conference of the trade which the Scottish Secretary proposes to summon in October. If he can secure agreement it may be assumed that the necessary legislation will go forward, but that is a condition which t will not be easily satisfied. Men engaged in an industry recently so prosperous will be difficult to convince that they must abandon hope of a return to better times, and that many of them must seek a livelihood elsewhere. Opinion in the ports is divided, but on balance favourable. MARINE ENGINEERING RESTRICTION. Another blow, covering a smaller area, but within its dimensions not less serious, is the announcement that Messrs William Beardmore and Co., Ltd., under an arrangement with the National Shipbuilders Security, Ltd., are to cease the building of main propelling machinery for ships at their Dalmuir works as from the end of next year. Shipbuilding ceased four years ago, and the step now announced is a logical sequel. Work may continue in the making of Diesel engines, turbines and other of the firm’s specialties, but at the best there will be a sad decline from the days of the war when- over 40,000 men were working there with a weekly wages bill of £145,000. The business is the lineal descendant of that which was started by Robert Napier almost a century ago and responsible for the building of the first Cunarder. a wooden paddle steamer which crossed the Atlantic in 1840. This is an instance of an industry carrying out its own contraction, but it is none the less painful on that account, and the loss to the Dalmuir district will be grievous. EDINBURGH AS CAPITAL. Mr Cunninghame-Graham is a fellowcountryman of whom any Scot may be proud, a picturesque figure, the representative of an old family, and a distinguished author, but when he mounts a platform he is apt to talk nonsense. Why, for instance should he have gone out of his way this week in his advocacy of Scottish Home Rule to refer to Edinburgh as “ forlorn and deserted ” and drawn an unfavourable comparison between it and Dublin? I doubt if Mr Graham has ever spent a week on end in Edinburgh. He has lived most of his life in North Africa and South America with occasional intervals in London, and it is a little late in the day for him to expect to be accepted as a champion of his country’s interests. He has done nothing to make Edinburgh what he desires, like the rest of us, to see it, “a centre of Scottish art, literature and commerce.” Neither art nor literature needs a parliament to make it flourish. When Edinburgh was the “Athens of the North,” it had much less self-government than it enjoys now, and as for commerce, no one knows better than Mr Graham that that depends on factors which are beyond the control of aiiy legislature. He quotes as a proof that Scotland is over-taxed the fact that she pays £ls 7s a head as compared with the Irish Free State’s £9 los, but since the major part of the national revenue comes from income tax •

and duties on such luxuries as drink and tobacco, his figures merely show that Scotland is more prosperous than Ireland. Does Mr Graham suggest that we should repudiate our share of the national debt or that he would like to change the political and economic condition of Scotland, for that of Ireland? If ho does few will agree with him. PENSIONS FOR NURSES, Sir Leybourne Davidson, of Huntly Lodge, who made a fortune of £168,000 as one of the pioneers of the rubbergrowing industry, has bequeathed among other legacies for public purposes a-sum of £IO,OOO to be used by his trustees for pensions to hospital nurses in Scotland, who were too old to join insurance schemes while in service. The gift to meet the needs of a much-deserving class is typical of Sir Leybourne’s kindliness and shrewdness. Another interesting legacy announced this week is that of Mr T. B. Fotheringham, a Glasgow timber merchant, who in distributing the whole of his estate of £30,000 for public purposes, left £3OOO to the Chancellor of the Exchequer for the reduction of the national debt. Mr William Shewan of Eastburn, Inverugie, a retired East India merchant, rightly anxious to see the fruits of his generosity within his own lifetime, has offered £SOOO to the Town Council of Peterhead on condition that it erects a cottage hospital within five years. The council has cautiously decided to hold a public meeting before assuming the responsibility, but even in the present depressed condition of the town there should be no hesitation.