WHEN FISH WERE CHEAP.

Taranaki Daily News, 3 January 1920, Page 8

WHEN FISH WERE CHEAP.

TWENTY YEAES OF CHANGE. CAUSES OF PRESENT SCARCITY. FACTS AND FIGURES BY AN OLD HAND.

An interesting record of changes in the fishing industry during nearly a. quarter of a century is given by Mr. d'Oridant, a fisherman of long experience, now of Lake Ferry, in a letter to the Wairarapa Age. '•1 started fishing in this coiony in 1895," writes Mr. d'Oridant. ''First in Wellington, where we used to get Sd per bundle of fish, a bundle roughly consisting of 7to 81b. This was for all fish except warehou, which were (id, and hapuka, for which we got 6d up 1o 101b, Is up to 201b, and Is 6d each aft-rwards. I then went to the French Pas?, where we got Is 6d per dozen for blue cod, when not more than 14 dozen a sack and 2s 6d per dozen of not more than eight dozen per sack; other fish 6d per b;mdle. I was fishing there for about four years, and during that time our average catch per day was about 25 to 30 dozen blue cod. Now the men are lucky if they average 10 dozen. From the French Pass, I went to Nolson, whare at the time there were plenty of snapper, flounders, garfish, kawhai, and herrings, and the prices were: Snapper 4s dozen, flounders 2s 6d dozen, garfish 4s per basket of 2S dozen, herrings 4s per basket of 20 dozen. At that time we could catch more than we could sell. It was nothing to get 20 to 50 dozen snapper at one haul of the net, and we could get from 25 to 35 dozen flounders for a day's fishing. Now snapper are £1 per dozen, and hardly any to be got. The cause of this is the continual trawling of Golden Bay hy the Nora Niven. Golden Bay is especially one of the great breeding grounds for fish. In the six years I stayed at Nelson, the price of schnapper only rose Is per dozen. All these prices I am quoting were the prices paid to the fishermen.

FOREIGNER IN THE FIELD. "At the time, and for several year* ; after, there was no fish market at Well- j ington, but there were markets at Dunedin and Christchureh. In those times ! a fisherman agreed to sell his whole catch to a fishmonger, who was supposed to take all he could catch, but in reality he only did so as long as it suited him, as if fish came in freely there was always some excuse; also, if. you were sending fish from, say, the French Pass, Nelson, or Kapiti, you generally had from one-third to lose, the fish being supposed to be bad. Also. another thing that made things worse was the quantity of Italians, Portu- , guest, Austrians. etc, that came here..! These men would take almost anything il for their fish, and when they had two j or three hundred pounds sterling would, go back to their own countries. Tn IS9O there were a? many fishermen fishing out { at Warehou Bey as Italians; now, I believe there is not one Englishman. j

A HAPUKA HARVEST. "Things were so bad in 1905 that I shifted to Waikanae, and the prices then niling for fish were 8d per bundle all round, except blue cod, which were lOd, and hapuka 2s 6d each. A fair living could be made at these prices, and I stayed there four years, when I Went to Lyttelton to take charge of a trawler. We were then fishing for flhe Christchurch market, and the prices for flounders and soles (average weight, flounders lib and soles ljlb each) was from 2s 6d to 12s 6d per dozen, and we did fairly well at those prices. Unfortunately, about this time hapuka were found off Timaru, and in about two years the fishing fleet increased fTom one launch to fifteen. They were manned by farmers, ex-publicans, and I believe an "ex-bobby." The boats were averaging from 50 to 150 hapuka a day, and consequently groper fell to as low sometimes as 5s per cask of 14. Also, large quantities were supposed to have been sent to the destructor. I know I only got one-eight out of two lots of hapuka numbering 144.

SELLING THE CATCH. "A very bad regime was instituted at Christchureh market in this way. Instead of the auctioneer selling a few fish for each man, he would sometimes sell all one man's and not sell any of another, especially if the other had complained in any way. I had gone to Timaru in 1909 just at this time, so I went to Oamaru, in spite of the fact that Oamaru fishermen were under a great disadvantage over the trains. The Timam men sent their fish by the second express leaving Timaru at 4 'p.m-, but the Oamaru men were forced to send Ifeoifia-hr .<&« first exarws, which left

Oamaru at 11 a.m. We repeatedly asked the Railway Department to change this, and I went to the Hon. Mr. Millar, but we could not get it changed. The standing price at Oamaru at this time was groper Id per lb, blue cod 2id per lb (both headed and gutted), barracouta 2s 6d per dozen, moki 5s dozen, red cod Is 6d dozen. We could have done fairly well at these prices if we could have sold all we could have caught, but there were too many boats. The trouble about this time was the general adoption of oil engines. Thus anything with hands and feet went fishing, ex-butchers, slaughtermen, etc., in many cases only going fishing when their own trade was slack, and thus making things bad for everybody but the salesman, principally, and in a way the retailer.

EXPENSES INCREASE WITH PRICES "From then on I was up and down the coij.st of tlie faoutk Island, till two years ag(/> Fish, I find, are getting scarcer every jear. The price the lishermau now geVs is certainly much better than in yeaii gone by, but the cost of working lias increased at the same time. For years we paid Us to 10s b'd per case for uenzme, now it is 23s b'd; line Is 8d each, now 7s b'd to 10a each; twine, Is bu to Is Sd l per lb, now Sis to 10s lb. Also, we have to be constantly getting larger launches, and they are nearly treble and quadruple the price. We arc not allowed lo form a Union, i.e., the men who own and work their boats. The Laoor Department say that there are two parties in a boat —the skipper, who is the master, and his mate, who is the union. Now this is rot. Both men share alike. The only difference is tiiat if the skipper is the owner of the launch he gets a certain percentage oi it. The oalance is divided between the crew. Thus, say, a launch takes 3s in the £, a catch of £2O, two men the boat, would work out thus: Benzine and lubricating oil, say, £1; cartage, etc., ss; cases, etc., os; boat's share, £3; total £4 10s. Each man in this case would receive £7 lus. Now, I say when men work in this way, they aru purely piece-workers, and can form a union, -llso, strange to say, the men who man the Napier trawlers in just this way are allowed to form a union, and are under an arbitration award. Again, one of the reasons I am against trawling by steamers in shore is that a big vessel makes a clean sweep of everything that comes in front of the net. The nets (trawlers) are made 1 of different sized mesh, so as to allow the small fish to escape. Bujt it does not act in fact like this, as the net is stretched so tight, hardly anything gets through.

HOW TO PRESERVE FISHING''I would allow motor boats to travel inshore as they cannot tow so large nets, nor can they tow so fast, and also ■their nets are mucli lighter, and do not kill all the fish like a steam trawler, it must also be borne in mind that New Zealand is just the top of a mountain, and that there are only a few miles of bottom around the coast on which the fish can live. This is the fish which live on the bottom. .Snapper are rarely caught over 120 fathoms, dounders 30 fathoms, soles the same, hapuka and kmgiish up to 300 fathoms, blue cod up to 120 fathoms. Now, these lish are what I call local iish, only inhabiting certain grounds, and if you fish these grounds out clean there is nowhere Ironi which fish can come again. Fish like warehou, kahuwai, and barracouta are on a dill'erent plane, as they are floating fish (school lish), and they would not be caught out so easily, as a trawler does not catch them. If we are in this country going to preserve our fish, the Government must see that we have a proper class of man, and recognise that a fisherman is a tradesman, just as much as a carpenter or engineer."