The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-07-10
THE NORTH SEA FISHED OUT.

Steam, Ice and Rapacity the Causes
 of Scarcity.
 There are just as good fish i'll the sea as ever came out of 1t.
 The proverb is the formula of the na-
 tional optimism, and as such, in regard to the comforting view of life which it is intended to convey, may be true enough. But, as a simple statement of fact 1t is unfortunately shockingly un- true.
 There are not just as good fish in the sea as used to be caught, there are not nearly so many of them, and the com parative few that remain are much more difficult to catch.
 "Soles used to be caught in the North | Sea" people may say by way of eX- pressing the view that life is desert | barren of opportunity. For it is per fectly certain, if the present conditions continue that in few years the North Sea sole, as well as the plaice, turbot, cod and other formerly abundant fish, l will exist only in museums and in the regretful memories of aged epicures. The North Sea is rapidly being fished out. There are 14,000 square miles of it, varying in depth from eight to one hundred fathoms-an almost unimagln- able volume of water which not long since was literally teeming with life. But impossible as the achievement sounds, the sea is being exhausted of it's fish and in a few years it will be as void of fish as the Westminster Aauarium Then, as happened in the case of that famous institution, it may have to be reorganized on new basis, with new objects, purposes and methods It may even be that it will have to be handed over to the care of Josiah Ritche, who in some wonderful manner will manage to make per cent. out of it by sheer showmanship, exhibitions, with stalls for the sale of marking inks, glass cutters and India rubber stamps along the foreshore, swimming displays by the Beckwith family at Yarmouth, high diving feats by Miss Luker and shapely assistants at Scarborough. shooting galleries at Grimsby and Hull, twenty-four hours continuous entertainment on the Dog ger Bank, and, all included in the one charge of a shilling, grand electrical illumination of the water in which the fish used to swim.
 If was at Grimsby that I learned the alarming danger of exhaustion that threatens the North Sea fishing indus try.
 Tn matters concerning fishing Grims- bv knows what it Is talking about It is the greatest fishing port in the world. It handles fish in the wholesale, just as Manchester does cotton, deals in fish. speculates in fish, gambles in fish. just as the Stock Exchange does in shares. Its pontoon, a covered wharf by the side of the dock, where the fish is landed and marketed is more than a quarter of mile long and fifty or sixty feet in width; and every day this great market in choked with the spoil that the hunting trawlers bring back.
 As you walk on it you paddle in fish slime, among rushing, excited men splashed with fish slime. You pick you way with difficulty, leaping over huge, gleaming white halibut, making detours round rows of giant cod or boxes brimming over with soles, plaice and haddocks.
 A handbell rings, and dealers and buyers rush to the auction to compete furiousy for the latest landed cargo. For it is always a "bull market in Grimsby. However much fish is land- ed, it is less than the possible consump- tion And the public demand is al- ways increasing, while the supply, as far as the North Sea proportion of it gees, is constantly diminishing. So prices are always rising.
 Outside, in the docks. the water is as crowded with ships as the pontoon is with fish. Powerful looking steam trawlers lie nose to nose as closely as they can be packed against the dock side. These are the chief cause of the profusion of fish on the Grimsby pom toon and it's growing scarcity in the North Sea.
 Besides steam, ice and rapacity have had a great deal to do with it. Steam, which renders it independent of wind, tide and weather, quadrules the devas-