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

Norway and 43% abroad, mainly to Lübeck and Gothenburg. Later,
when the Swedish government imposed a tax of 4 rix-dollars per
barrel, 347 the Swedish trade suffered. Dried herring, about 1,800 barrels,
went exclusively for the domestic market, while uncured fresh herring
was sold exclusively to Sweden. The latter trade was very small, only
amounting to 153 rix-dollars or about 120 barrels. Nevertheless, the trade
became the object of considerable friction. 348 The buyers of uncured
herring arrived in ballast in March every year from south Halland and
north Scania. The customs accounts for 1732-34 show that the boats
were a very conspicuous element in the harbour, even though they
accounted for no more than 8-9 % of total exporting tonnage. As the
boats were quite small, every sixth arrival was Swedish. 349 The Aalborg
merchants tried to prohibit the trade in an effort to force the Swedes to
buy cured fish. When the Swedish herring fishery off the coast of
Bohuslän (formerly Båhuslen) developed after 1756, the Aalborg trade
stopped. 350 Even worse, the Limfiord herring catches dropped, so that by
the last quarter of the eighteenth century Danish writers much deplored
the state of the Danish herring fisheries. They could only watch with
envy as the herring fisheries of Bohuslän experienced an unprecedented
boom.
The other Danish fisheries of the period are hardly worth mentioning.
The once thriving fishing town of Skagen reached its low water mark
with a much reduced population living in absolute poverty. The West
Jutland fisheries now exported little to Hamburg and North Germany,
and the few hundred fishermen fished mainly for barter with the
surrounding countryside. 351 Fisheries in North Zealand were not much
better; the fishermen complained bitterly of Swedish competition when
the Bohuslän fisheries began, and certainly the number of boats in
Gilleleje declined from eighteen to seven between 1760 and 1785. The
reports to Chancellor Oeder in 1771 bristle with suggestions as to how to
counter Swedish competition, the main obstacle to progress in the
fisheries. Only in 1774 did the government issue a protectionist measure
347 Chr. M. Olrik, Afhandling om Aalborgs Handel (Copenhagen, 1773) 156.
348 Olrik, Afhandling, 237.
349 A. Monrad Møller, Fra galeoth til galease (Esbjerg, 1981) 105, 116.
350 C. Klitgaard, Aalborg Købmænd gennem 500 Aar (Aalborg, 1931) 113-14.
351 Holm, Hjerting.
195