§ 53. Air-Commodore Harveyasked the Minister of Food how much trawl fish and herring have been dumped in the sea since 1st January, 1947.
§ Mr. StracheyTwo hundred and fifty tons of white fish and 225 tons of herrings. The dumping of the white fish was unavoidable, but the dumping of the herrings was inexcusable. The nation needed the herrings for conversion into oil for margarine and into cattle feed, and our price of 30s. per cran was accepted by a number of the fishermen as a fair one. I am advised that dumping of herrings constitutes an offence under the Waste of Food Order. We did not take steps to initiate proceedings on this first occasion because we are hoping that the fishermen will see the foolishness of what they did and will in future accept the 30s. per cran offer.