THE HERRING FISHERY OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

Wanganui Herald, Volume XXXXIII, Issue 12579, 28 September 1908, Page 3

THE HERRING FISHERY OF NORTHERN EUROPE.

The Atlantic has been aptly called the "hornng pond." Indelibly associated in the past with the economic and political history of Occidental mankind, the herring seems destined to survive as one ot tho greatest factors in the welfare of Western nations. To-day what the wheat crop is to America the herring catch is to Northern Europe. Few persons, even among tho masses that consume this fish, realise its economic importance. More than three billion herrings are captured annually, according to the latest estimate. The weight of that annual catch is over seven hundred and fifty thousand tons. It would require twenty-five thousand freight cars, each with a capacity of thirty tons, to haul the herring harvest inland from the Atlantic. The fishing fleets simply wait for the herring. They take but one chance in their enterprise, but it is a supreme one — the herring may not come.

Yet the herring invariably appears off some shore. Mot for ten centuries has it failed to stock annually the world's larder. Had it been more certain in its migratory movements the herring would have had a less eventful history. -It would have contributed no less to the welfare of mankind, but its career would have been confined to the. shores of tha few nations it favoured. In their prosperity the herring simply would have had honourable statistical mention. But the most "favoured nation" has had no meaning to the independent fish. Like the national governments it has frequently disrupted and controlled, the herring is shifty in its policy. Moving in all ages, in a vast army covering' the Atlantic for miles and reaching to unfathomed depths, the herrings have approached tho spawning grounds in the shallows off the shores of Europe. Their coming meant wealth for the adjoining nation. Whither the herrijyrs went in their subsequent exodus, £nd to what shore they would return, neither sailor, scientist, nor Minister of State could know. All that was certain was that there was no assurance tftat the multitude of herrings would return to the spawning grounds of the year before. Thus the annual anxiety in regard to the reappearance of this mysterious wanderer of the deep daveloped into a gamble, a lottery, for the highest stakes, international in its importance. A few years ago the scientific German Government, determined to find out if possible where the herring went aftor the spawning season, appointed a learned commission of experts. These sci-.*i-tific sleuths haunted the Baltic and tried to trace the herring to its lair in the Atlantic. For some distance they could keep track of tho wandering fish ; then suddenly the mysterious army of the deep disappeared. Thereupon the philosophical commission reported that the herring, after all, does not' travel far, but, when safely beyond the jurisdiction of the Germans and other sea dogs of Western Europe, merely retires to inaccessible depths of the sea. On the way to the spawning grounds of the herring army is boundless hordes of blue-fish, sbark§, porpoises, gulls, and countless other etiemies. When, in spite of this ceaseless attack from natural enemies, and in the face of the further handicap of nets strung' under water for miles across the path of migration, the herring mothers have succeeded in depositing their spawn in the shallow water, haddock and other small fish gather in amazing quantities to devour it. Nevertheless, the herring, re-fusing to become extinct, offers himself as a constant banquet to mankind, to inhabitants of the air and of the waters beneath, and then goes sturdily on his way toreplenishJthft^^. How he manages to survive the leaguercd attacks of his foes is still an inexplicable phenomenon. And this fish not only survives, but still exerts great power. Divert it from the expectant peoples of Northern Europe to-day, and widespread distress would ensue From the northern point of Scandinavia to Normandy and England greater herring squadrons than ever before in history await the annual coming of that host of fish. Canadian and New England fishermen, Swedo, Norwegian, Russian, Dutch, German, English, Scottish, Irish, and French, every season man their thousands of herring boats and push out for the great harvest. In Groat Britain alone more than one hundred thousand men are engaged in the industry. It is reported that the fishermen of Dunkirk, Calais, Dieppe, and Boulogne not infrequently take more than a quarter of a million herring in a night. On the coast of Scotland alone there are fifteen thousand herring boats. From all the anxious ports of Western Europe and its islands craft put out in the herring season forming a commercial regatta on a collossal scale. — "The Ocean."