The Southland Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. “Luceo Non Uro.” WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 21, 1936. Fish For Australian Markets?

Southland Times, Issue 23026, 21 October 1936, Page 4

The Southland Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. “Luceo Non Uro.” WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 21, 1936. Fish For Australian Markets?

The Minister of Marine, Mr Fraser, who is charged with the conservation of fisheries has every reason to watch carefully the project of Australian interests to start trawling in New Zealand waters to supply the Australian market. The holding company, the Southern Fisheries Corporation, hopes to raise—largely in Britain —a total capital of £500,000 of which £350,000 will be allocated to a production company to be registered in New Zealand and £75,000 to each of two distribution companies to be registered in Victoria and New South Wales respectively. _ The corporation intends to establish a refrigerating and canning factory in Cook Strait at an estimated cost of £75,000; and it expects to employ 168 men in New Zealand and 94 in Australia. It proposes to bring about 40 fishermen and their families from England to man the fishing fleet. As Mr Fraser said in an interview printed yesterday, this may conceivably be an interesting and useful industrial development; but it may also be a development damaging to New Zealand’s fishing grounds. There is no gainsaying that the people of New Zealand should have first call on their own fisheries and that the export of fish to fill the needs of other countries should he a secondary consideration. The Chief Inspector of Fisheries, Mr A. E. Hefford, has frequently called attention to the dangei’ of the fishing grounds being depleted through over-exploitation; there is evidence, indeed, that some of the grounds have already suffered. Mr Hefford discussed the situation in his latest report to Parliament:

The problem is not merely that of preserving for the row-boat fisherman the good and easy fishing that he enjoyed in former years — it is doubtful whether that could or should be done in any case —but rather that of conserving the stock of fish to be available without diminishing returns for commercial purposes in the future. If measures to this end are to be taken on a sound basis and in a manner that will be just to all the interests concerned, it will be necessary for the department to be equipped for acquiring more precise and more comprehensive information on the fish and on the practices and results of the fishing operations than has hitherto been the case. It must be recognized that with [two] exceptions . . . the exploitation of our sea fisheries has been going on without any real surveillance on the part of the department that is responsible for their conservation. . . . . If the developments that are foreshadowed should take place, it will behove the department to keep in close touch with the realities of the situation (which cannot be done by reading Press cuttings) and to be in a position to prevent the possibility of depletion of fish stocks by over-intensive or wasteful fishery operations. All that is definitely known about the New Zealand trawling grounds points to the conclusion that they are not of very considerable extent.

It is clear from what Mr Hefford says that before, the Minister can pass judgment on the Australian venture he must in any case have fuller information about the nature and extent of the fishing grounds than his department has so far been enabled to give him. As far back as May Mr Fraser spoke of the need for an increase in the number of inspectors on the ground that a great deal of scientific work would have to be undertaken before the state of the different fishing grounds could be properly ascertained. Until that work is completed it is hard to see how the Government can encourage such extensive trawling in New Zealand waters as is now planned, even if the corporation’s proposals are otherwise acceptable. There certainly are othex’ considerations—one of them being the extent to which the company’s operations may affect the livelihood of New Zealand fishermen; but it is the conservation of supplies for the New Zealand market which must be the Government’s main concern. The project will be serving a useful purpose if it stirs the Government to make a thorough investigation of New Zealand’s commercial fisheries, covering not only the organization and control of fishing but also problems of transport and marketing. To quote Mr Hefford again:

If New Zealand trawler owners and fish exporters wish successfully to meet this threatened competition on their own grounds, it will be necessary for them to do everything that is possible in the direction of improving the quality of their exported fish by utilizing the best methods of handling, freezing, storage and transport. There! is evidence that, with Government encouragement and assistance, fishing-vessel owners in Australia are getting abreast of the most modern practices in the storage and transport of frozen fish.