H.—l6

improvement of the industry, are equally crippled and limited by the lack of scientific knowledge of the natural resources in question. It must be added that such scientific knowledge is not obtainable at a glance, but can only be acquired as the result of organized investigation over a considerable period of time. The necessity for such knowledge is demonstrated when cases of controversy arise between conflicting fishery interests, and the Department is in the invidious position of being compelled to take as evidence the conflicting opinions of either side to the dispute. Though they may be perfectly honest, such opinions are inevitably biased, and in any case cannot carry the weight which obtains with facts gathered in a scientific manner by disinterested parties. The sort of information that is needed as the groundwork for rational fishery exploitation and administration may be classed under two heads. In the first place, adequate statistics relative to the fisheries are urgently needed. The present system of obtaining estimates of the total quantity and value of fish landed at each fishing-port for a whole-year period is of slight utility, assuming that the approximate accuracy of the figures provided may be taken for granted, which, in view of the circumstances of their collection, is by no means the case. The omissions and imperfections in the figures which up to now have represented the fishery statistics of New Zealand are quite inevitable so long as there is no adequate provision made for their collection and collation. It is not suggested that the time is ripe for the institution of a system on anything like the scale of the fishery statistics of Britain or Canada, where the fishing industries have reached a high stage of development and are of special national importance. We should begin by concentrating on the most important fishing-ports and limiting the details to the comparatively few species of fish which are of outstanding commercial importance. Fishery statistics afford not only an index to the progress of the fishing industry in its various branches, with its seasonal and local variations, but they also throw light on the natural phenomena of the occurrence of the fishes themselves, especially as to their varying abundance from year to year and from place to place. The principal object of scientific administration is to regulate exploitation so that it does not cut too deeply into the reserve that must be maintained to ensure adequate stocks for the future. Even in this young and thinly populated country there have already arisen cases where serious depletion of certain fish stocks has been alleged to have been brought about; and others will doubtless arise in the future. The assistance of statistical data in enabling one to detect the trend of any decline in the yield of a fishery is too obvious to need any further exposition. While statistics relating to the yield of the fisheries are the most obvious and most easily attainable form of information, they do not provide all that is necessary for our guidance in dealing with fishery problems. We require the further light of a knowledge of the broad facts of the lifehistory of the fishes —how, when, and where they spawn, their age and size at maturity, their rate of growth, and the nature of their migrations. Without such knowledge administration is blindfolded, and any project of substantial economic development can only be guesswork. It should therefore be the policy of the Department to do all that is possible to gather scientific understanding of the fishlife in our seas and fresh waters. This calls for scientific staff and equipment. To make provision for the amount of work to be done might very well involve the establishment of a trained staff, with laboratory facilities and the means of collecting material for study on too ambitious a scale to contemplate at the present time. That the necessity for making provision for scientific fishery research is recognized by the Department is shown by its interest in the Portobello Marine Biological Station. The existent facilities of this station are very limited, but more substantial support has been afforded which it is hoped will render possible considerable increase in its output of useful work. It is highly desirable also that the developmental work with regard to oyster-culture and salmon acclimatization should be accompanied by experiments and observations on scientific lines. In connection with oyster-culture, for instance, there is a need for investigations into the conditions which make for the most successful spatting and fattening. It is certain that such knowledge would enable more efficient and productive methods of culture to be developed. With regard to the acclimatized salmon species, we require to know how their growth in the streams, on the one hand, and in the great lakes or the sea, on the other hand, compares with that of the same species in their native habitat. The study of scales affords a ready means of throwing light on this question, and, correlated with information as to their food-supplies, would enable us to understand the conditions of their life and growth, to gauge the possibilities for the ultimate well-being of the stock, and to regulate their exploitation in an intelligent way. Such tasks are admittedly quite beyond the power of this Department to carry out as at present staffed and equipped. It is perhaps sufficient at present that the desirability of such work should be recognized, and a commencement made upon the more fundamental problems. Already, with trifling equipment and very little expense, important biological facts regarding the snapper, the rock-oyster, and the toheroa have been elucidated, but much remains to be done before a comprehensive knowledge of the more important points in the natural history of these species can be obtained. However devoted and efficient may be the services of its temporary and permanent officers responsible for the enforcement of fishery regulations for the conduct of the rock-oyster business in the north and the salmon-culture operations in the south, a Department whose functions are limited to these activities cannot be regarded as fulfilling the part of a national fisheries administration. The three main lines along which development should proceed in order that the Department may be placed in a position to regulate and foster the Dominion fisheries on a sound and enlightened basis, and to be of assistance to the general technical improvement of the industry, may be summarized as follows : (1) The collection of fishery statistics; (2) the acquisition of scientific information about the more important edible fishes, crustaceans, and molluscs; (3) the establishment of a bureau of technical

15