FISH PLAYING MAJOR PART IN BRITAIN’S DIET

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 13, Issue 1, 29 September 1948, Page 4

FISH PLAYING MAJOR PART IN BRITAIN’S DIET

What Sea’s Rich ' Harvest Means (By Reece Smith, New Zealand Kemsley Empire Journalist) London; August 25. Fish is presenting to the British housewife today the same problem bully presented to army cooks—how to disguise it to look different. With scarcely any frying fat, steamed fish has become, in the estimate of the homeland of roast beef, something less than a delicacy. Despite this, fish remains a mendously important item in Britain’s pantry. At any time it is one of the main sources of natural wealth of 'the country. Today the industry is standing in for the meat import business. Recently I went to Grimsby, second only to Hull as a British fishing port, to see this vital industry at work. More than 330 trawlers sail out of Grimsby, not counting small inshore vessels. The North Sea trawlers are out from seven to ten days a trip; those fishing the Faroes from 14 to 18 days; while the deep sea trawlers, operating in raw, rugged conditions in the White Sea and round Bear Island; are up to 30 days away each trip. Between them the trawlers landed 190,000 tons of fish at Grimsby last year. To all ports British trawlers brought home 764,000 tons, a fair help in filling bare spots in the British larder, if not on the British palate.

Grimsby trawler skippers, who work on a percentage basis, have been known to make up to £SOO on a 30-day voyage. A good man can become a skipper before he is 30. Sailors less skilled in sea lore make less, and are older before they get a command. Deck hands, on wages and a bonus according to catch, are making £2 to £3 a day at sea, and have never been better off.

Compared to a 25 per cent unemployment rate prewar there is now full employment ior all the fishermen of Grimsby,, and throughout the industry. It is estimated there are 20,000 men sailing in the trawlers from British ports. At Grimsby, where 4000 sailors man the ships, 8700 persons are employed on shore, landing, processing and marketing the fish. This proportion would suggest 43,500 shore workers in the industry throughout Britain. With the meat industry a skinny ’shadow of its prewar self, trawling is enjoying its finest spin eVer. But trawlermen, like farmers, are never optimistic. For one thing, with the European food shortage there is a possibility of the North Sea becoming shed out. The last post war period provides a precedent. North Sea catches dropped from 225,000 tons in 1919 to 75,000 tons in 1938. Further, .there have been cases of trawlers of other countries bordering the North Sea throwing fish heads back’into the water after cleaning and gutting operations. This drives all fish from the polluted spot. Much remains to be done in the international regulation of trawling, and in seeing that the trawlers of signatory countries obey any conventions agreed on. Not so immediate is the problem of what will happen to the fishing industry if meat returns to Britain in its prewar quantities. There is certain to be some revulsion from fish, though the availability* of cooking fats would help keep it in favour. So far there is no sign of any crack in the industry’s future.