32 BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 



from the many others that readily suggest themselves, the fish products of American 

 waters have for years been steadily declining. True, there are some that still give 

 evidence of former prolificness, but the number is so small that they are the excep- 

 tions that prove the rule. Manifestly, this deplorable state of our fishery interests is 

 due either to the inefficiency or to the non-enforcement of the laws. Nature has had 

 nothing to do with it, except to assert herself when her laws have been infracted. If 

 waters are polluted, the fish she has placed in them either die or seek purer streams. 

 If fish are killed during their spawning seasons, she does not supply others to take 

 their places during that season. These are some of her revenges. Her work is nearly 

 always perfect, and where it fails to be of that character — as far as the maintenance of 

 natural fish-plentifulness is concerned — the failure is the result of man's interference. 



It will not be seriously contended by anyone familiar with the subject that the 

 present meagerness of our food-fish supply is due to any legitimate demand for con- 

 sumption or to any lack of fish-producing waters. The Chinese proper, with a terri- 

 tory not nearly as large as the United States, with a population ten times as dense, 

 with waters that will not compare with ours in extent and variety and which are not 

 in any sense naturally more productive, for centuries before the discovery of America 

 maintained, unimpaired, the fecundity of their rivers, lakes, and seacoasts to an 

 extent that enabled them to make fish their leading article of animal-food diet. That 

 abundance is still maintained. Realizing that the products of their waters must of 

 necessity be their principal source of animal food, instead of — as we have largely 

 done — improvidently "killing the goose that laid the golden eggs," they have care- 

 fully nurtured the valuable boon, and with the results stated. 



The anomalous features of the case are that no people on the globe are quicker to 

 appreciate or more ready and eager to take advantage of any and every opportunity 

 for increasing individual or national prosperity than are the Americans, and that so 

 many of them close their eyes to the dollar and-cent value of what could be realized 

 from the products of our waters. Were those products at this time equal to those of 

 sixty years ago, and were they maintained, as they should and readily could be, by 

 more stringent legislation and by general obedience, the result would be an annual 

 addition of millions to our national wealth, and necessarily and naturally be^ largely 

 promotive of the comfort of the people. Assuming such to be the case, the question 

 for serious consideration is whether, with any means at command, it is possible to 

 restore the former productiveness? Experience lias clearly demonstrated that, save 

 in exceptional cases, merely restrictive laws furnish no adequate remedy for existing 

 evils, nor is it probable they ever will. Fear of punishment is not always an efficient 

 agent in the prevention of crime, but it becomes all-powerful when public opinion 

 stands by as its supporter. Until that sentiment has been inculcated up to the 

 standard of a full comprehension of the intrinsic importance — the money value, if you 

 please — of American fishery resources, there will be little room to hope for ultimate 

 success. That point reached, there will be no need for restrictive statutes. The 

 wisdom of guarding food-fishes against injurious molestation will then come to be 

 regarded as an obligation, the faithful discharge of which will be demanded by self- 

 interest as well as by a patriotic regard for the general weal. 



The starting-point in this campaign of education is the thorough dissemination of 

 the truth that all fish in the public wafers of a State are the property of the State, -and 

 that the taking of them, by whatever means the State may prescribe, is a privilege; 



