FISH CONTROL

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLVII, Issue 21508, 22 November 1939, Page 11

FISH CONTROL

FAILURE IN LONDON • BACK TO BILLINGSGATE” A storm of cheers greeted the announcement in the House of Commons on September 20 that the Government’s scheme for controlling the distribution of fish supplies had broken down and would be abandoned. Under the scheme nothing had been left of Billingsgate except the language which its operation provoked; but now London’s great central market has been reopened and the wholesale fish trade has resumed its activities. Here is another case where the possibility of large and early air raids induced someone to think that central markets had better be transferred out of harm’s way, but where the alternative provisions produced a dislocation not less complete than would have followed a highly successful air raid (commented the Times). The general idea was to establish a series of depots staffed by persons on fixed salaries, and under the control of a central office. There have been bitter complaints that old-established businesses have been closed down without compensation, expert staffs dispersed, the new depots understaffed, and valuable food wasted. A case is quoted where, at one large distributing centre, imperfect knowledge of local requirements led to a failure to distribute supplies until many tons of fish had gone bad and had to be thrown away. The distribution of fish will now return to familiar hands, and fish auctions will be resumed at the ports. Mr Morrison, who announced the end of this very fishy scheme, added that he would shortly make an order fixing provisional maximum prices, and would appoint an advisory committee representing those who caught and those who distributed fish in order to see that common sense prevails in any further measures of control which may be found necessary. Thus closes an unhappy experiment in bureaucracy. But the question remains: Who is responsible for framing these ill-conceived schemes? What great brain, for instance, thought out the original organisation of the Ministry of Information, which, it was asserted, was ready to function at a moment's notice, but in fact started its career rather as a Ministry of Irritation? Who conceived the so-called commercial war risks insurance scheme, which has thrown most of the trading community into a ferment? There have been far too many of these products supposed to have been prepared and polished, but found in practice to be improvised and crude. This fish case is the worst so far, for the Government have had to admit that their scheme was bad beyond the possibility of early reform; and it is the more puzzling because the scheme seems to have run counter to the accepted principle of using existing and well-tried organisations.

Some excuse, no doubt, can be found in the fact that defects in any scheme are only fully revealed when it is put into operation. But fish makes so valuable a contribution to the nation’s food supply that it is really inexcusable to add artificial difficulties to those inevitably experienced in time of war by the fishing fleets themselves.