The Evening Star WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 19, 1928. FISH.

Evening Star, Issue 20053, 19 December 1928, Page 6

The Evening Star WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 19, 1928. FISH.

ITu? Hon. G. M. Thomson knows that he is tackling a hard task when ho seeks to improve the conditions of the local fishing industry. Ho has tackled it before. The conditions, as ho says, have been always unsatisfactory. Cooperation between all tho parties that are concerned in tho industry doubtless is desirable, but those who have preferred to work for their own hand, and so to make obstacles to any improvement of tho system, will not readily give up the practice. The result is that fish, which should be one of the most common articles of diet, is a luxury during most parts of the year to too many beside seas in which it abounds. From the public viewpoint it Ls an outrage, however the fishermen may defend it in their circumstances, that tho number of groper supplied to tho Dunedin market should bo limited to thirty-six per day per boat, tho price being thus kept up. And that is not tho end of limitation, of which a further extension has been threatened for the future. Combination enforces a rule that fish shall not come up to Dunedin from Port Chalmers on the day on which it is caught, because if that were permitted some who reached shore with late hauls might be unable to catch tho train, and so would be prejudiced by comparison with others. A threat was recently made that during the main weeks of the summer no fish would be placed on the market on either Saturdays or Mondays. Fishmongers requiring it for those days would have to lay in their stocks on Fridays, doubtless at an enhanced price because the supply would be less. The fish for Saturday, Monday, and for Tuesday’s breakfast would have to be frozen, which would not make it more attractive to the public; the fishermen would reap the same, or approximately the same, return for less labour, Tho prospect was also raised that the market would be suspended at the chief holiday season for a period of not much loss than three weeks. Happily there are enough parties sharing responsibility for the fish industry to give promise that these threats will not materialise, at least to an extent that would make consumers wholly dependent on a supply so regulated. The interest of consumers who require cheap fish and plenty of it (plenty being a condition of cheapness), and the interest of the fishermen concerned with the relationship of prices to tho labour which they perform, obviously are not the same, and the whole problem is complicated by the perishable nature of tho commodity. Fish is naturally most plentiful and therefore cheapest in the summer, but that is precisely the time when ..here is least demand for it owing to misgivings of the effect of the warm atmosphere on its quality, frozen fish, as wo have said, being not popular. That disadvantage of the summer period might be entirely overcome if the new brine-chil-ling process referred to by Mr Thomson, and receiving now the best study of our inspector of fisheries, which has no effect on quality, should be introduced and be found to be a commercial proposition. It is understood, however, by the local trade to be a very expensive process, beat suited to great centres where the demand is very much larger than it is here. If fish were carried by motor lorries on the present road between Port Chalmers and Dunedin, instead of by the train, ite quality almost oer-

tftinly would be depreciated by such rough transport, and the freight costs, it has been estimated, would bo doubled. The export trade in Now Zealand blue cod to Melbourne and Sydney lias suffered during the last two or three years through the competition of South African varieties. New Zealand fish cannot be sold in Australia at the same price with the South African, which is packed by cheap labour, and, being all filleted, involves no waste. Judging from the long period for which unsatisfactory conditions have continued, we are not sure that the Chamber of Commerce, the Expansion League, and other bodies to which Mr Thomson has referred its problems will got far in its consideration of the fishing industry, the possibilities of the development of which, in the form of secondary industries, go even further than he has indicated. An expert report upon the whole matter would be welcome.