DISQUIETING FISHING CONTEST
A strange news item appeared in the June 30 issue of the Paris daily Le Monde, Among 320 fishermen who participated ina fishing contest in the Seine, only 41 caught any fish, The oatoh was 81 small specimens -- the total weight being less than four and a half pounds, “In addition, many of these fish were sick and suffered from anatomical anomalies." .
The fisherments association, which has ‘80,000 members in the federal department, expressed "concern." For quite a while, the | fish population in the Seine has been declining because of mounting pollution, visible at times in rafts of detergent suds, but nothing like this has been seen before. Moreover, while pollution has been worsening in tributaries to the river, fish still survive in the smaller streams, Le Monde concludes that something unknown is involved, the nature of which "should be determined,"
As ardent pisciculturists ourselves, we should like to call ' the attention of Le Monde to a remarkable coincidence in the United States, There the country's main river, the mighty Mississippi, "father of waters," has been virtually depopulated of fish in its lower reaches, The few still found are in toxic condition.
The cause is considered to be a certain insecticide washed into the streams from America's farms in minute amounts.
Even the oceans now show contamination,. insecticide having been found in marine plants in the Arctic, What is most alarming is that the poisons, ingested with food, are accumulating in. hunian beings. When will the tolerance limit be passed?
The need for socialist planning thus becomes evident in completely unforeseen ways. The capitalist system, if it is permitted to continue in its anarchic way, will finally doom humanity, if not through the bomb, then through insect powder,