FISHERIES DEPARTMENT. (Hansard, 12 July 1898)

§ LORD HENEAGE

My Lords, I beg to ask Her Majesty's Government whether it is correct that the Fisheries Department of the Board of Trade, with its assistant secretary and experienced sea fisheries inspector, has been abolished, and the interests of the sea fisheries industry placed under the charge of the Assistant Secretary of the Harbour Department, with an inspector of Scotch salmon fisheries as chief inspector; and, if not, what are the new arrangements proposed with regard to the vacancy caused by the retirement of the Assistant Secretary of the Fisheries Department? My Lords, I have put this question on the Paper in order to get some definite and accurate information with regard to the future position of sea fisheries at the Board of Trade. Those who are connected with the fishing industry, and those who have taken a great deal of interest in it, have been very much surprised and very much dismayed at the report which has gone forth during the last few weeks that the Fisheries Department is about to be abolished, and that it is either going to be merged or combined in the Harbour Department. I have had a great many communications from official representatives—well-known and recognised representatives—of the trade, stating that they look upon this step, if it is true, not only as a retrograde step, but as a step in direct contravention of the Resolution of the House of Commons and disastrous to the trade. I would remind your Lordships that it is now 30 years ago since the fishing industry was rescued from a back room in the Harbour 629 Department, and combined with the shipping industry in the Marine Department of the Board of Trade. Since that time the sea fishing industry has developed in an extraordinary manner, and I see it is stated by the Sea Fisheries Inspector of the Board of Trade that over £7,000,000 worth of fish were landed on our shores last year. It was during the time we were connected with the Marine Department that the Acts of 1883 and 1887, the regulations which now obtain in regard to the fishing industry and the North Sea Fishing Convention, were brought forward and carried; and it was only because the shipping industry developed to the same extent that it became necessary for the Board of Trade to consider the question of what was to be done, as it was no longer possible to keep these two great industries in the same Department. The whole question was thoroughly discussed and the trade consulted, and the result was that Sir Edward Birkbeck moved, in the House of Commons, in the Parliament of 1886, a Resolution, with full permission of the Board of Trade—and that Resolution was carried—to the effect that there should be a separate Sea Fisheries Department of the Board of Trade, with an Under Secretary to look after the interests of that industry. I believe, but I am not quite sure, that the following year the Sea Fisheries Department was set up, and that the Salmon Fisheries Department, which had up to that time been under the Home Office, was combined with the Sea Fisheries Department, but if I am wrong with regard to that the noble Earl who will reply on behalf of the Board of Trade will correct me. From that time up to the present we have got on most amicably with the Board of Trade. We had, in the first instance, as Under Secretary, Mr. Swanson, Who had been chief inspector of sea fisheries under the Marine Department. He was succeeded by a very able man, Mr. Barrington, who has retired this year. They had as Chief Assistant Mr. Malan, who has had practical experience in this matter; for, in addition to a very long connection with the Board of Trade, he was for five or six years engaged in one of the largest sea fishing ports in this country, putting into force the regulations they wished to try. We are now told that the separate Sea 630 Fisheries Department is to be abolished, although it appears on the Estimates of the present year, with the Votes for the Under Secretary and the two inspectors [Mr. Malan and Mr. Fryer], and that it is to be combined with the Harbour Department, under the present Under Secretary of Harbours. We are further informed, in a paragraph which appeared in official type in the Times, and other newspapers, a short time ago, that a Mr. Archer, who is, I believe, the salmon fisheries inspector in Scotland, has been appointed to be chief inspector of the Harbour Department. Well, that simply means this—that the two prime officials of that Department will neither have the slightest knowledge or experience of sea fisheries. The sea fishing industry is on a very different footing from the salmon fishing industry. It very often happens that we are compelled to put forward the Foreign Office and the Admiralty in order to protect the interests of the sea fisheries, and it is necessary, before they can do anything, no matter how great the emergency, that they should be put in motion first by the Board of Trade. We all know that correspondence between Departments is not one of the best or most rapid modes of procedure, and therefore it is necessary that those who look after the interests of the sea fishing industry in the Board of Trade should have the interests of that industry at heart. I will not detain your Lordships further. I only hope that the noble Earl will be able to give some explanation which will be satisfactory to the trade, but if it is only the explanation given in the other House I am afraid it will not be satisfactory.

§ THE EARL OF DUDLEY

My Lords, I do not think a very long explanation will be needed to satisfy my noble Friend. I think he has misunderstood the facts of the case if he imagines that the Fisheries Department of the Board of Trade has been in any way abolished. That is not so. What has happened has been that the Harbour Department has been merged with the Fisheries Department, and that both have been put under one Assistant Secretary instead of, as before, under two Assistant Secretaries. The chief inspector of fisheries has now, therefore, more freedom to attend to his technical work and to his expert advice 631 than before when he was hampered by secretarial duties, which kept him in London, and which could be perfectly well performed by an Assistant Secretary. There Las been no diminution of staff; indeed, instead of the interests of fishing being in any way disparaged by this change, we think that, on the other hand, it will derive great advantage. My Lords, my noble Friend has alluded to Mr. Archer's qualifications for this post. We have every reason to believe that Mr. Archer is a most able and experienced gentleman. He has performed, I believe, his duties in Scotland to the utmost satisfaction of the Scotch Office, and we have every reason to believe that he will be able to discharge the work that is now entrusted to him in the most satisfactory and efficient manner. It is, perhaps, impossible to find a man who combines as great and as complete a knowledge of one class of fishing as of another. There is no doubt that the salmon fishing question, to which my noble Friend has alluded, requires greater study and greater technical knowledge than the sea fishing question, but we have no reason to suppose that a gentleman who has capabilities sufficient to master the difficult questions connected with salmon fishing, as Mr. Archer has, will in any way show want of efficiency in a branch of the subject far less technical and requiring far less study.