In the midst of all its other problems —from the tax cut to civil rights—the Senate of the U.S. last week found time to take up two bills that are essentially wartime measures. Wartime, that is, for the U.S. fishing industry. Across the world's oceans in recent months, dozens of fishing nations have battled in a series of "fish wars"—usually nonviolent but sometimes under gunpoint—that have important economic and political consequences for the nations involved (see color pages). As one of the participants, the $381 million U.S. fishing industry has turned to the Government for the help that most of the world's other fishing fleets already receive.
Spurred by the presence of Russian trawlers that have invaded traditional U.S. fishing areas off the Northeast coast, the Senate passed a bill empowering the Administration to penalize foreign fishing vessels that venture into U.S. territorial waters, and extending U.S. jurisdiction to include the waters of the continental shelf. The next day the Senate approved a bill granting a 55% Government construction subsidy for the U.S. fleet, which is woefully antiquated in comparison with the fleets of other major fishing nations. The U.S. industry, warned Senator Warren G. Magnuson, "is caught in a cold and losing wet war with Soviet Russia, Japan and other foreign nations."
Antitank Guns. Moving onto Georges Bank off Cape Cod and the Grand Banks off Newfoundland, proliferating Russian trawlers snag American nets, ram smaller boats in the fog and often force fishermen right off the banks; in Alaska, fishermen recently became so furious about Russian trawlers pulling their crab pots that they began ordering antitank guns to mount on their decks, were dissuaded only by a flying visit from Alaska Governor William A.
Egan. Texas shrimpers have to deal with Mexican gunboats that wait to pounce on them over western Gulf of Mexico shrimp beds; and San Diego tuna men are still bitter about last spring's capture of two of their boats by Ecuador, which assessed $26,000 in fines.
U.S. fishermen are not the only ones whose tempers have been rubbed as raw as a seaman's salt-sanded hands.
The Brazilians and the French have vied with gunboats over Brittany lobster boats working in traditional Brazilian fishing waters. Icelandic gunboats chased British trawlers from Iceland's cod grounds, and the Danes are shooing them away from the Faeroe Islands. Norway is chasing Swedish fishermen from grounds that the Swedes have fished for hundreds of years. Japanese boats are barred from South Korea, badgered by the Russians in the North Pacific. Irish corvettes have scattered Dutchmen and Belgians from Ireland's herring grounds, and Canada last year ordered a Russian fleet out of the Bay of Fundy. Even the conference table can become chilly; last week in Tokyo, Japanese, U.S. and Canadian delegates labored through the fifth week of a conference stalemated by a U.S.Canadian refusal to let Japanese fishermen fish for trout, halibut and salmon east of the 175th longitude.