The North Atlantic Fisheries, 1100-1976 - University of Hull

experiment during a deep economic crisis. Fish prices were falling
heavily after 1920 and the fishermen could not keep up their incomes and
pay back their loans. Exports of fish was also of great importance to the
total Norwegian economy. Social and political reasons also came into
consideration. The fishermen in general were one of the weakest groups
among the workers of Norway at this time. Their income, education and
standard of living were at a pretty low level. State intervention gave them
a kind of protection against still deeper deterioration. At the same time
they numerically represented a rather significant group in the elections.
The political parties therefore competed against each other to get their
votes.
Technologically the fishing industry has gone through an enormous
developement in the last century. Looking upon the Norwegian part of
this general picture, some specific features may be pointed out. While the
steam engine was successfully integrated in the fleet of fishing vessels in
several other countries in Western Europe around 1900, this happened
only to a small degree in Norway. 293 The Norwegian fishermen in fact
heavily resisted the introduction of large steam ships and their use of
modern purse seine equipment in the Lofoten fishery. The main
confrontation came at the famous battle of Trollfjorden in 1890. The
fishermen feared a structural development away from the small scale
system where they could take part as free individual owners of boats and
fishing gear, to a large scale system where they only could participate as
employees. The central government listened to the protest and a few
years later the use of purse seine was prohibited in the Lofoten fishery.
This prohibition still exists. 294
Introduction of the combustion engine in the Norwegian fleet of
fishing vessels, however, did not meet problems of the same kind. This
fundamental change in technology started a few years later and took
place at an astonishing pace. 295 The county of Møre and Romsdal on the
western coast was at the head of the development right after 1900,
followed by Nordland and Troms around 1910. By 1920 the first phase
of the motorizing process had come to an end. The combustion engine
was much easier to integrate into the Norwegian fishing industry because
293 Brandal 1983.
294 The use of purse seine in Lofoten was allowed for a short period after World War II.
See Glomseth 1969 for a survey of the topic.
295 Thorsvik 1972, Mathisen 1982, Christensen and Pedersen 1995.
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