If you excuse the pun James Robb was completely out of his depth in his article on fishing in last week's Salient. It is only unfortunate that the shining beacon of his ignorance was not swamped by the dark underlay.

First point. Despite a few isolated instances the New Zealand fishing industry has not over-exploited fish stocks — a fairly constant catch of about 50,000 tonnes over many years has shown this. Lack of finance and the predominance of other primary produce areas has also meant that there has been little if any expansion in this sector. The high supply of meat and dairy products in this country has also meant demand for fish has not risen sharply. Until recently many edible species were not even fished by our fishermen.

The only source of capital to over exploit our resources has come from overseas either through the appearance of predominantly subsidised foreign fishing boats or through joint ventures.

But elsewhere massive depletion of stocks is occurring as mainly Japanese and Russian fleets move into the few remaining new grounds and fish them dry in a few seasons leaving undersea deserts that will remain for decades. The same process happened in whaling where the few big whaling nations gobbled up whales all over the world nearly wiping whales from the face of the earth. Our fishermen will never catch near the 10 million tonnes a year the Russians and Japanese do. So let's put the blame for over exploitation where it belongs — with the big imperialist powers and their respective monopolies.

Kicking the big powers out of our waters will help conserve resources. Foreign nations catch ¾ of the fish taken in our waters — Russia and Japan alone take over 50%.

Second point. James raises some highly questionable data in his support. His figures for the decreasing Icelandic fish catch are all for years when British trawlers had virtually unrestricted access to Icelandic grounds and decreasing catches were inevitable. Iceland also had no control over the total catch in its waters — it now has that control through its 200 mile zone. James Robb says "It is impossible for each country to solve its fish conservation problems individually" when this is obviously not the case with New Zealand. Most of the fish we are concerned with migrate very short distances — all within our waters. Also the nearest major fishing power is 1500 miles away (Australia) and would hardly be affected by the setting up of a 200 mile zone around our coast.

Next time he jumps in boots and all to defend the 4th International's sage line James Robb should at least get his facts right — the problem is If he got his facts right he would hardly be defending the 4th International.

P.S. The announcement of the intended 200 mile zone recently means nothing unless foreign fleets are kicked out and a moratorium is placed on the formation of joint ventures. Declare a 200 mile zone now!