HELP FOR THE HERRING FISHERMEN
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] SIR,—The present period of depression in the Scottish and English herring fishing industry suggests that the curers appear to be lacking in enterprise in finding new markets for their goods, when old markets fall off or are closed. A serious effort should be made by the exporters for the trade and the curers to open new markets in the United States, Canada and South America. The peoples in both of these countries are the emigrants or descendants of emigrants from those European countries, which have imported our cured salt herrings for centuries. In the south of Europe too— Spain, South of France, Italy, Greece, and Southern Russia— there should be ample markets for these cured herrings, looked upon in these countries for ages as a luxury.
There seems to be little doubt that the closing or threatened closing of the German market to our cured herring industry is no more than the moving of a pawn in the clearing-house game, and we should not look in vain to the Secretary of our Overseas Trade Department to counter that move effectively.
The curers' reasonable request to the general public, private corporations and the various public bodies should
be actively supported, if it were in no other spirit than one of mere thankfulness for the superb work done by men whose intimate knowledge of their rough, hard, cold occupation proved such an excellent asset to the Nation during the War. Good salesmanship through existing business channels, the co-operation of our consular service and judicious advertise- ment in our own and the foreign Press ought to place this hard-pressed industry, before another season starts, upon a fully employed basis with profit to all concerned in the distribution of a food which is in Scotland familiarly and aptly termed " halesome am, Sir, &c.,
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