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

In the cod fisheries, conflict was focused on the introduction of
Norwegian trawling in the decade before World War II. 297 Foreign
trawlers, primarly from England and Germany, had visited Norwegian
waters from 1905 onwards. Their fishing operations had resulted in some
disputes with Norwegian fishermen, but these problems did not have a
wide scope before c1925. Later on foreign trawlfishing operations in
Norwegian waters heavily increased and so did the confrontations at sea
between the trawlers and Norwegian fishermen, as long lines and fishing
nets suffered damage or were lost.
This development was caused by several factors. Cod fishing in the
North Sea experienced decreasing catches after 1922 and never
recovered its former position. The result was increased trawling
activities in other areas, such as the North Atlantic, around Iceland, in the
Barents Sea, in the Norwegian Sea and near Spitsbergen and Bear Island.
This was also possible because improvements in refrigeration
technology facilitated long distance operations on a much wider scale
than before. Norwegian fishermen had at the same time, after their
investment in mechanical machinery, been able to operate more
frequently on the outer banks than before. Both factors increased the
possibility of conflicts at sea.
The Norwegians tried to introduce high sea trawling on several
occasions after 1900, but for many years without success. The traditional
fishermen neither had the ability to invest in great steam trawlers nor
wanted such vessels to take part in the Norwegian fisheries. Business
interests in the domestic fishing industry had on the other hand a more
positive attitude. Buyers and producers of fish could secure their supply
of raw material by the use of steam trawlers. By investing in such
technology, they might be able to improve their control of the fish
delivery, which was a very uncertain factor in their business operations.
Some experiments in this field took place in the years until 1933, but
they showed to be definitive failures. Such companies soon got into
trouble and had to give up after a while. They did not prove profitable for
the investors. One main reason must have been that the firms had great
problems in competing in the European markets. The trawling steamers
in countries like England and Germany were delivering their catch at
home in order to supply their own population with fresh fish. The
domestic market for fresh fish in Norway was probably too small to
297 The presentation of the trawling controversies is based upon Christensen 1991 a.
163