Troubled Waters

Boston's beleaguered fisherfolk looked uneasily toward Canada. Last week the Dominion's shipments of cod fillets to the U.S. ran almost neck-&-neck with those sliced from Boston catches. Week before, Canadians dumped more cod on Boston markets than were landed at the sprawling Fish Pier by the city's own boats. Reason: a three-month-old labor dispute had tied up the big steel trawlers of eleven of Boston's fishing companies, allowed only the smaller draggers to operate.

Alarmed fishermen and boat owners, eying the latest figures on Boston's fish imports, found gloomy reading:

P: In 1939, Canada shipped about nine and a quarter million pounds of fish into the U.S.; in 1945, almost 38 million.

P: In 1939, Iceland exported a scant 12,800 Ibs. to the U.S., but last year upped that by 10,000%, shipping in a fat 1,402,000 Ibs.

P: Total U.S. fish imports last year jumped from 9,426,000 Ibs. to 43,169,000 Ibs.

Anger over such enormous inroads into the $700-million-a-year U.S. market bid fair to outweigh the anger fishermen and boat owners felt toward each other. The Atlantic Fishermen's Union (A.F.L.) had struck for higher wages and a 60% share of the sale of the catch. The companies, disgusted with 58 strikes and work stoppages in four and a half years, stubbornly shook their heads, talked of selling their boats to foreign nations, buying the catch at one cent a pound below Boston prices. But at week's end, best bet was that labor and management would get together in an armed truce to take up the defense against the foreign invasion. To Boston fishermen, even crow makes better eating than foreign cod.

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