23 



of the case into Mr. Gait's hands, make him the supreme arbiter by 

 divesting him of his representative, partisan character, and let him, 

 upon his personal honor, decide the case." There is one lesson this 

 decision should teach us : to insist that upon all matters connected 

 with the marine interests that the business through some trained rep- 

 resentative man should be represented. Without being or meaning 

 to be disrespectful, I do assert that the legislation of the country 

 fails at this very point, and while I firmly believe that both the leg- 

 islative and executive branches of our Government desire to promote 

 the interests of this great industry, which is of more importance in a 

 national sense than any other, still it is a subject that can be only 

 understood by practical contact ; and it is largely owing to a lack 

 of united effort on the part of ourselves that we have been so lamen- 

 tably slaughtered every time since 1783. 



We are now in possession of facts and figures, statistics, deci- 

 sions and reports, such as never before were within reach of the Gov- 

 ernment. There can be no excuse for further failure. The Cen- 

 sus Report of Prof. Goode devoted to the fisheries are exhaustive in 

 detail. The proceedings of the Halifax Commission with its three 

 volumes of testimony ; the arguments, reports and decision of the 

 Fortune Bay case, and the innumerable reports of outrage on our 

 fishermen, sustained by sworn testimony on file in the State Depart- 

 ment ; with a detailed affidavit of the trip and catch of every Ameri- 

 can vessel that has fished for mackerel in the Gulf of St. Lawrence 

 for the past six years ; this with the available personal testimony of 

 persons, both scientific and practical, gives us an advantage never 

 possessed before. I am not prescriptive, but if there is to be another 

 controversy, I think that in view of the fact it has been openly charged 

 that men of English birth and education have had the manipulation 

 of American statistics as officials of the departments at Washington, 

 and that complicity between English agents and those officials large- 

 ly prejudiced the case against the United States, we should insist that 

 men of American sentiments, at least, should have what supervision 

 is needed to put our case right. It is true that amid the great indus- 

 tries of the country our interests in dollars and cents ma}' appear 

 small, and it is not the fault of our past legislation and diplomacy 

 that it is not smaller. 



The indomitable pluck and energy of the men who own and man 



