And here, and here only, we feel that Milton has done better because he has attempted less. That undisturbed song of pure concent Aye sung before the sapphire colour'd throne To Him that sits thereon With saintly shout and solemn jubilee, And the cherubic host in thousand quires Touch their immortal harps of golden wires, With those just spirits that wear victorious palms, Singing everlastingly. In these lines Milton has if possible surpassed him who stands all but first among the first. C. T. A NORTH SEA REVOLUTION. WITH WITHIN the last ten years a change has been made on the North Sea which is without parallel in the history of fishing. Steam is altogether pushing out sails, and so rapidly are screw vessels growing in number that before long the picturesque smack is sure to be a relic of the past. While at work upon this paper I had a simple illustration of the great revolution which is taking place upon the North Sea. I saw an ordinary steam trawler which in five weeks had earned £700 for her owners. She was then in harbour, and her crew, sharers of her great good fortune, were reeling about in various stages of intoxication. They had been celebrating the event for a week. Side by side with her were a number of sailing vessels which for several weeks, on account of continued bad weather and calms, had not earned enough to pay for their bait. In some cases the bait-boxes of herring-had been returned to shore, probably to be disposed of to the unwary as early kippers. No greater contrast could have been afforded than that of the prosperous-and drunk-members of the steamer, and the quiet, hopeless-looking men on the smacks who for so long a period had not been earning even bread. By way of showing how things have developed, a few simple figures may be given relating to the chief British fishing ports. Hull recently owned 169 smacks, against 458 ten years ago; Grimsby had 402 smacks, compared with 804 at that time. Of steam trawlers Hull had 241, with a tonnage of 14,455; while Grimsby had 232, of 13,008 tons. In sail and steam fishing craft Grimsby possessed 632 vessels, of 41,259 tons; while Hull had 408, of 27,450 tons. Yarmouth and Lowestoft also lead Hull in the aggregate number of fishing vessels owned, but these are mostly smacks. In every respect fishing appliances are being brought up to date. This points to increased profits for owners and employed; undoubtedly it means more safety and a better mode of life for that army of 20,000 men and boys whose lives are practically spent on the wild waters of the North Sea, and who pursue their calling in such dangerous and uncomfortable circumstances. Mr. C. H. Wilson, M.P., who is chairman of one of the largest companies engaged in the North Sea industry, their fleet being established about six years ago, recently in public very ably summed up the present position of North Sea fishing. I cannot do better than quote from his words. "Of late years," he said, "there has been a very great alteration in its conduct. Steamers are rapidly superseding the old sailing smacks with which the trade was formerly carried on. The increase is something marvellous, and the number of steam trawlers now approaches a very large figure indeed. I should think that in Hull and Grimsby, upon which we pride ourselves as being the chief ports connected with the North Sea fishing trade, there cannot at the present time be fewer than 500 steamers connected with the trade. It is extending all round the coast. The sailing smacks, as a rule, go out into the North Sea for a considerable time, and remain there; but the business is conducted in two ways. One system is called 'single boating '—that is, a sailing smack or a steamer goes out on its own account, and is away a few days, and if it is successful, brings its cargo of fish into port. The company with which I am connected, which is called the Red Cross Company, has a fleet, including those building, of nearly 100 vessels. They go out into the North Sea; the sailing vessels remain there perhaps ten weeks, and the steamers in connection with the fleet, which are calling every day, remain perhaps five or six weeks. Then there are steam carriers employed, which almost day by day collect the fish and bring it to Billingsgate; and here in London, to a very great extent, all those who are consumers of fish are dependent upon the fleets connected with Hull, Grimsby, and Yarmouth. The business is carried on day by day, winter and summer, and it is one of hardship and great danger. Every now and again terrible storms occur in the North Sea, and frightful loss of life and property is occasioned. I hope that the changing from sailing smacks to steamers will in future reduce to a very great extent this loss of life." No one who knows from experience what the North Sea is to smacksmen can fail to agree with Mr. Wilson, or hesitate to hope that the revolution which is now in progress will soon have reached its ultimate development. Only by steamers can the best work be done on the fishing grounds, and only on board of these craft can the fishermen enjoy any real comfort when at sea. The smacks are picturesque and cheap, but they are in these days both helpless and unprofitable, and their impotence in bad weather means a heavy VOL. CCLXXXV. NO. 2013. T annual death-roll. It is the exception for steamers to suffer in a gale, but no storm sweeps over the fishing grounds without bringing death and devastation to the crews of sailers. Sometimes, but rarely, a steam trawler will founder-two fine Hull boats went down in a recent gale-but as mere life-preserving structures they are as much superior to the smack as a mail boat is to a wind-jammer. As to the loss of life amongst smacksmen caused by a North Sea gale, there are some memorable instances on record. There must be many who vividly remember what is known as the "great March gale" of 1883. That season was marked by a fearful storm in which more than 360 smacksmen and boys were lost, and enormous damage was done to the fishing vessels, a large number of which sank bodily with their crews. With regard to mere damage, every gale causes much of it. In one storm not long ago a large number of smacks were nearly wrecked, and about 100 from Lowestoft alone lost their gear. It is calculated that the damage done to smacks during that gale was £12,000. Such a revolution as that of which I write inevitably leads to keener competition. One recent instance will show that the struggle for business on the North Sea is in every way as sharp as business fights ashore. One night a skipper off the Horn Reef had a haul of fish on which he reckoned that he would clear a profit of £50. He had to go thirty miles from the reef to the fleet with which he was fishing, so that he might deliver his catch to the carrier for conveyance to market. He hurried back to the reef with all speed, and found that there were already five trawlers scooping up the fish. Next day there were twenty-five, for good and ill news spreads as fast on the North Sea as anywhere else, and if the fish had held, there would have been 125. Wherever the fish goes, there goes the fisherman also, the hunt being kept up in the most persistent and remorseless fashion. No wonder, in view of this state of affairs, that a well-known authority has declared feelingly that he would not be a haddock for anything, because there is no chance whatever nowadays of escaping the trawlers' nets. The revolution also means that as the fishermen grow more eager to gather the harvest of the sea, the harvest is in peril of becoming smaller. There has long been an outcry against the way in which some smacksmen deal with immature and spawning fish, and much injury has been done to the supply through the thoughtlessness and carelessness of the catchers. But on the North Sea the scientist is stepping in, and measures are being taken for the preservation of the fish supply which were undreamed of even two or three years ago. Growing attention is being given to the question of fish culture at sea, and artificial hatching is being employed with so much success that young fish are now caught in large quantities where they have not been seen before this method of replenishing the grounds was tried. So amazing is the fertility of fish that in a few minutes, by taking proper measures, one may pour into the sea eggs enough to produce, when incubated, more fish in number than the whole contained in the 100,000 tons that now pass yearly through Grimsby Market, which is by far the leading fish centre in the United Kingdom. If this plan is intelligently and extensively adopted, there will be even a more wonderful development in the means of catching the fish than there has been of late, great as it is. A generation ago sailing smacks exclusively were engaged in trawling over the North Sea grounds; now sails cannot possibly hold their own with steam, and at every fishing port are to be seen dandies, cutters, yawls, luggers, and mules which are for sale, and obtainable almost at the price of firewood. There is at Yarmouth alone a depressing proces sion of such craft. It is inevitable that with the increase in the number of steam fishing vessels there should be a diminution in the number of sailers. Few sailers are now launched, but, on the other hand, steam trawlers are being built with astonishing rapidity. It is only fourteen years since steam power for fishing purposes came into operation at Grimsby, but so enormous has been the development of steam trawling that there are now at that place more than a dozen public companies, some of which pay extremely large dividends. At the time of writing, regardless of the statements made concerning the hardships under which the trawling interest suffers, Councillor Richard Simpson, of Hull, known as the "Steam Trawler King," has no fewer than forty-six steam trawlers and carriers being built. Probably by the time this paper is published they will be engaged in fishing. Recently also other owners, principally limited companies, have ordered large numbers of these handy little craft, and soon the North Sea will be even more alive with them than is the case at present. Side by side with the North Sea revolution has been the growth of the fishing industry. This is best shown by the Board of Trade Returns. According to these statistics for 1896 the value of the fish landed at English and Welsh ports during the three preceding years was £5,291,476, £5,437,917, and £5,510,421 respectively. Most of the fish was caught in the North Sea, the value of that landed at Grimsby alone being £1,340,521 in 1894, £1,418,895 in 1895, and |