FORTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS, 1881-1883. 877 



interesting, no doubt, and they are veiy complimentaiy to the peo- 

 ple, but the Fish Commission has had but little to do with the pro- 

 duction of that wealth on the part of our people who are engaged in 

 various fisheries. It is to our own capital, to our own energy, to our 

 own intelligence, this wealth is due. It has been built up by the indus- 

 try and courage of our own people, and not from anything done by 

 this Fish Commission in attending international displays of the kind 

 now proposed. 



Why, then, all this parade of the wealth of the country in connec- 

 tion with an appropriation for a fish exhibition abroad ? Do you pro- 

 pose to rob the people connected with these fish industries of the rep- 

 utation they are justly entitled to, and gather it all up for this Fish 

 Commission in a movement of this sort? 



. You have been told that some seventeen regiments of the German 

 army are now being fed with boneless codfish, and that during the 

 Berlin exhibition the fact was constantly before the German people 

 that these were American fish, and that for the first time the people 

 who had charge of the commissary department of the German army 

 learned our American soldiers were being fed on codfish. Such a 

 reason as this is so empty, is so absurd, it can invite nothing else but 

 the suggestion that there is no real, substantial reason why this thing 

 should be done. The report fails to show how the Fish Commissioner 

 obtained the information upon which this statement has been based, 

 and the gentleman having charge of the bill has failed to show it. 



Every possible fact which can be gathered together in reference to 

 the production of fish in this country has been collated in this report 

 for the purpose of furthering this exhibition. I do not see, however, 

 one solitary reason in the report which can be considered as tenable. 

 Are not our New England fishermen enterprising? Are they not 

 awake to their interests ? If there is a market abroad for their pro- 

 duction, who will sooner find it out than they? Is there a market 

 there, and are we to learn in reference to it for the first time by this 

 exhibition ? 



The Commissioner says in this report: 



Many countries of Europe have already reached that period when they look to 

 foreign nations for their supply of animal food. America furnishes a great part ; the 

 less populated regions of Europe the remainder. The increase in the price of what 

 is called "butcher's meat," though gradual, is inevitablej and every year a larger 

 and larger percentage of the population will be unable to secure it. In this emer- 

 gency we must look to the water for the means of supply. 



Europe is now looking out over the face of the globe for products 

 of this kind, in order to purchase them. She is looking to America, 

 and everywhere else. 



Now, Mr. Speaker, I agree with the sentiment that the supply of 

 food fish should be increased, and I am willing to vote as liberally to 



