{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.022857142857142857, 'fraction_numerical': 0.009523809523809525, 'mean_word_length': 5.293413173652695, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
“Capitalism and the Scots Fisherman”: New Technology, Investment and Risk in the Scottish Herring Industry before World War I

As Jeremy Tunstall has observed, "fishing is one of those fields in which Britain led the world before 1914."2 This was certainly true of its herring industry, which harvested half the total catch of the entire northeastern Atlantic before World War 1. This essay reflects upon the industry's development in Scotland from the late nineteenth century to the war. Several authors, in particular James Coull and Malcolm Gray, have already emphasised its growth in the Scottish periphery, where access to stocks was favourable and alternative employment limited." Growth accelerated from the final years of the nineteenth century, as the fishery was revolutionised by the widespread adoption of steam-powered vessels. This paper focuses upon the economic consequences of innovation. This line of inquiry was stimulated by the condemnatory verdict on modernisation offered in Joe Duncan's 1909 article, "Capitalism and the Scots