‘For the Betterment of the Industry’: The establishment and work of the White Fish Commission, 1936–1939

Between the wars, the British fishing industry faced an invidious economic climate. Costs rose, over-fishing and falling prices depressed incomes, and structural faults that had mattered little in the years of growth prior to 1914 became serious handicaps. Government was thus obliged to intervene in a small but strategically important industry to a far greater extent than before, and did so in ways that reflected the broader thrust of interwar industrial policy. The Herring Industry Board has been well studied but the short-lived parallel body established to develop the bulk of the sea-fishing industry, the White Fish Commission, is all but forgotten, perhaps unsurprisingly since it did not even publish a report before it was suspended on the outbreak of the Second World War. This article surveys the situation facing the fishing industry between the wars and examines in detail the establishment of the White Fish Commission and its activities during its short life. It argues that, while the commission’s powers and resources were insufficient for the scale of its task, it laid the groundwork for much further-reaching intervention in the changed climate after 1945.