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(River Tees) was so polluted that the mussels would not thrive." "The Committee spent money
on them from 1901 to 1907 and then they gave it up as a failure."
Q. 2811 : As to decrease in cockles from beds on Tees and Humber. "Is that a large industry?"
—"It used to be fairly large on the River Tees, sir, and also on the River Humber." "There
used to be over one hundred men (on the River Tees) gathering both mussels and cockles. Now they
have dwindled down to between twenty and thirty."
Q. 2878: "The Humber is also polluted to some extent, which affects prejudicially the oyster
beds as well as fish? "Yes, sir." Q. 2879: "They (the sprats) have practically been killed out
of that river? "Q. 2881: "There used to be twice the number of boats working in the Humber. In
the year 1891 there were 60 boats employed ; now there are about forty-two boats working."
Q. 3005: "There are very few of our ports now (Lancashire and Western) from which
Manchester will allow the shellfish in the market at all." "It has been going on for 12 years;
it has come to a climax within the last three years." "Is that gradually getting worse?"—" That
is gradually getting worse." "Is that from sewage or from works?"—"Sewage." " Would
that be from every town around the coast ?"—"Almost." "Almost every town? "—"Yes."
Q. 3018: "Some people take the risk?"—"Only one or two towns have forbidden them ;
a lot of them take them." Q. 3019 and 3020: "We have no standing if the pollution is not injurious
to the mussel." "The mussels did not object."
Q. 3030: "I could name one town where they have been in the habit of gathering the mussels
in pure water then bringing them in bags and putting them within the breadth of this room over the
main outfall sewer of the town to store them, and then as the orders came they send them away."
Q. 3054: "In addition to contaminating mussels, do you not think that this greater effluent
going into the sea must have some effect upon the inshore fisheries? "—" I should not like to say, sir.
In estuary fisheries, yes, perhaps; but inshore fisheries, that is, within three miles of the coast, it is
largely lost six miles out,"
Q. 3487: "How do they (South Wales Local Fisheries Committee) pay their officers if they
have not got any money? "I have not been paid for nine months, sir; I have to spend my own
money."
Q. 5803: "Well, say North Devon, for instance, there are two or three estuaries there?" " Yes, I do not think they are looked after."
Q. 6021 : " The mussels for human consumption come from Holland, because the Dutch
Government have taken certain precautions as to purity over there, which I believe have satisfied the
authorities here. I do not know, I believe they have, and these Dutch mussels are thought to be clean,
and they are consumed in England."
Q. 6849: " I was rather thinking of the depletion of the fiat fish which is represented to us.
And you connect that with sewage, do you? "—" Yes, the question of sewage on fish foods. It
cannot be said that that has been proved. You may be right, but I do not know it to be the case."
Q. 7050: Mussels at Morecambe condemned "being polluted by sewage coming into the
estuary."
Q. 7053: "The only hope that I see is letting the shellfish grow and fatten in the polluted
water and then purify them before they go to market."
(c) Prohibition of exposure for sale of fish under a certain size.
Q. 5054, etc.: "There have been five Bills altogether introduced." "Yes, and they have
been proposed by the fishermen themselves." "From difficulties of size limit of flatfish it was
dropped."
Q. 6186 : " The trawler owners were the means and the cause of promoting these Bills, to ask
to be saved from themselves ? "—" Yes."
Q. 7299: "Do you think that prospects of such legislation are better now than they were then?"
—" I think so, in consequence of the labours of the International Council, which has recently passed a
resolution dealing with this very question with regard to plaice."
These replies have been quoted at length as they throw light upon some questions of great
importance from a public health point of view. The lesson to be drawn from them seems to be that
it is of first importance that the problems presented by pollution at the source should be solved ; it has
been by this policy and not by attempting to control the movements of healthy carriers of typhoid
bacilli, or to enforce protective inoculation, that success has been achieved in the past—and a great deal
has in fact been accomplished—and on the same lines further improvement must be sought in the
future. In a recent issue of a trade journal, under the heading" increased waterside arrivals at
Billingsgate," reference is made to the revival of the fishing industry and to the fact that a Danish
motor-boat had recently discharged" 20 tons of small plaice in excellent condition." The waterside
landings are not yet back to the pre-war level when four steam carriers landed on most days, and it is
added" there should be an excellent opening for arrivals similar to the Dutch carriers and the Danish
motor-boat." The revival of these industrial activities renders it important that the threads of inquiry
with regard to public health interests should be again taken up. The need for systematic inspection
with a view to destruction of fish and shellfish unfit for consumption, the desirability of protecting the
nurseries of the small fish, of prohibiting the sale of ungutted flatfish, and of coping with the problem
of the unsatisfactory shellfish beds, these all call for serious and early attention if the position as regards
preventing spread of typhoid is to be not merely maintained, but still further improved upon, until
at length the goal is attained—the entire abolition of the disease, and at the san.e time of the consequent
injury caused to the fishing industry.
It will be seen that London experience points to the conclusion that first and foremost improve55580
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