The Iceland Fishery Trouble
When the International Court of Justice decided last Decem- ber that Norway was entitled to fix a four-mile limit, instead of the generally-accepted three-mile limit, for territorial waters, it was certain that trouble would arise elsewhere. Iceland, with its great reliance on the fishing-trade, was the obvious place. Hence the difficulties that are now clouding our relations with an essentially friendly little country. Iceland, like Norway, has not merely extended the limits to four miles from the coast-line (however it curves) but to four miles from a line drawn across bays from headland to headland. British trawler-owners, in resentment at their exclusion from part of their customary fishing-grounds, are preventing Icelandic trawlers from landing their catch at Hull and Grimsby, as they normally do. Now the matter is being argued between Government and Government, and meanwhile British markets will be short of fish and the price will naturally rise. The value to us of the Icelandic catches is not to be denied. At the same time the Icelanders could not easily switch to other markets. Great Britain, when bowing to the decision of the International Court in the Nor- wegian case, made it clear that it would not accept it as a precedent. But if Iceland does the conflict remains unresolved. Discontents must not be allowed to grow to animosities.
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