Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 137.djvu/678

672 the long and short of the whole question seem to be that trawling "catches fish, that the line-fishermen might otherwise have taken, in a more expeditious and regular manner." It is the old story: "The old order changeth, giving place to new." Much as the hand-looms in the cottages scattered about the Yorkshire moors and lanes went down before the spinning-jennies and the mills, so the family fishing-boat will disappear before the trawler and the Fishing Company. Only that in the present case the process is rendered doubly hard upon the losers, by the fact that the survival of the fittest is brought about to some extent in the manner in which it was effected in the primeval forests – viz., by "smashing up" the unfittest.

It is impossible to look upon the results of this evolution as an unmixed blessing. The seductive phrases, "food of the people," "progress," and "free trade," fail to make up for the extinction of such a class as the fishermen of our village ports. It is not merely that such men are of immense importance to a maritime nation as a nursery for seamen, and as the first line of our naval reserve; but in this time of luxury and domestic peace, the fishermen are almost the only class who keep up something of the simplicity and courage of older times. Owners of their own boats, they have all the independence of the peasant proprietor, without his narrow and grinding life. Day by day they are accustomed to confront hardship and danger, to look death itself in the face. In the words of one of them, "We often have to fight, taking our lives in our hands, making a living for our families." For such a class to disappear is, in our opinion, a national calamity. That they will combine and start trawling on their own account is, in their present state of feeling, hopeless; nor would it be possible for those resident in tidal harbours that can only accommodate the smaller class of boats. It is rather to be hoped that the development of the herring-fishing – which has, upon the Scotch coasts at any rate, already taken a good many of the fishermen from the haddock-lines – may furnish employment for some, in event of the general decrease of the inshore fishing. Others may be wanted to man the increasing class of deep-sea liners; while the demands of the richest class of the community for line-caught fish will possibly always give occupation to a certain number.

It is to be feared, however, that the period of change will be one of hardship and its attendant ill feeling; and that although, if we look to "bread alone," the community may benefited, yet that we shall lose the light of many frugal and honest lives. It is true that we shall possess a "cheaper and more regular method of catching fish." At any rate, it is to be hoped that something will be done to put matters on a better footing than they are at present; and it is satisfactory to hear that, in these days of fancy legislation, there is a chance of a bill (for Scotland only) on this important question being brought forward, embodying some of the recommendations of the Commissioners. Whether, in spite of Redistribution of Seats, Supplementary Estimates, Irish members, and the general confusion now prevailing at home and abroad, anything useful will ever become law, is more than the most sanguine man or the most "advanced Liberal" can hope to say.