MR. GRAHAM MURRAY (Buteshire)I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland whether he is aware that the maintenance of the bye-law of the Fishery Board, by which a limited portion of the waters of the Firth of Clyde was opened to trawlers, is a source of great dissatisfaction and injury to the local fishermen of the district; and whether he has held or ordered any renewed inquiry into the 1313 circumstances of the case as he promised to do when receiving a deputation of the said fishermen in Glasgow on 25th November, 1892?
§ SIR G. TREVELYANI am aware that complaints have been made of the injury done by trawlers to the local fishermen of the Firth of Clyde. In consequence of the deputation of November, 1892, the case was fully inquired into in January last by Mr. Anderson Smith, of the Scottish Fishery Board. He reports that the small fleet of trawlers (there are 18 boats in all) form the principal fishing community of the locality, and have not seriously interfered with the productiveness of the ground; and that the town of Greenock considers that it could not properly be supplied with fish were it not for these trawlers. After careful consideration of his Report, I am not prepared to cancel the bye-law instituted under my Predecessor (Lord Lothian).
§ SIR J. FERGUSSON (Manchester, N.E.)Has the right hon. Gentleman given his personal attention to the case of the fishermen on the Ballantine Banks? It is a very hard one.
§ SIR G. TREVELYANI cannot say that I have gone into it personally, but I have read with very great care the Papers and the Report of Mr. Anderson Smith. I shall be happy to show them to the right hon. Baronet, and hear what he says about it.