REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. XXIII 
Again, portions of the vessel’s equipment, such as anchors, cables, fishing-boats, and 
apparatus of capture, are liable to be lost during stormy westher, and it is a great 
convenience to be able to purchase new material in the nearest Provincia! port rather 
than to incur the loss which must be sustained, provided the vessel is obliged to return 
to American markets to purchase them. This is true both in the fisheries carried on 
near the land and also in those on the more distant fishing grounds. This season much 
inconvenience was experienced by many of the vessels engaged in the mackerel fishery 
from the tearing of their seines and the loss of their seine-boats in heavy weather, 
owing to the refusal of certain Canadian officials to allow them to land their seines for 
purposes of repair or to buy new boats for continuing their fishing operations. Many 
of them were provided with two boats, and some carried two seines to guard against 
such contingencies, but in a number of cases vessels so equipped were equally incon- 
venienced with the others. 
The only occasion that vessels would have for entering the harbor, due to the 
methods of preserving fish, would be for the purpose of obtaining either salt, barrels, 
orice. It sometimes happens that the salt is damaged by a leak in the vessel, or that 
a detention beyond the expected time causes the melting of the ice, and it is impor- 
tant that our fishermen should be permitted to purchase additional quantities in 
Canadian ports, rather than run the risk of losing the entire cargo of fish or of return- 
ing with only a partial trip. The present interpretation given to the treaty of 1818 
by the Canadian authorities, while it might allow a leaking vessel to enter a port for 
repairs, would not allow it to replace the salt that might have been rendered worth- 
less by the leak. 
The privilege of landing cargoes of fish at Provincial ‘ports for shipment to the 
United States is of considerable importance to vessels engaged in the mackerel fishery, 
but of little value to those employed in the capture of other species. Vessels are thus 
enabled to land trips for shipment and to immediately resume their fishing operations, 
thus saving the two to four weeks necessary for making the homeward and return 
passage; but with the privilege of transshipping cargoes should be coupled that of 
refitting at the port where the fish are landed, otherwise the vessel might be short of 
provisions or apparatus, which would render it impossible for it to continue its fish- 
ing operations. 
Most of the vessels from Gloucester, Mass., engaged in the off-shore cod fisheries 
‘have made a practice of obtaining fresh bait in Provincial ports; but a majority of 
vessels similarly employed from other places carry salt bait, thus being entirely in- 
dependent of the Canadian supply. The chief difference between the two classes is 
that the Gloucester vessels fish with trawls, while the crews of most of the other 
vessels catch their fish witb hand-lines. It is claimed by certain of the Gloucester 
fleet that they get more and larger fish by the use of fresh bait, but the fishermen 
from other ports have found their own methods profitable and have not felt disposed 
to follow Gloucester’s example even when they had free access to Canadian ports for 
the purpose of obtaining bait. 
A few of the vessel-owners in Gloucester have long maintained that the time lost 
in going to and from Provincial ports to secure bait, and the temporary demorali- 
zation of the crews resulting from a visit to these ports more than offset any ad- 
vantages that are to be derived by the use of fresh bait, and urge that salt bait would 
be found, on the whole, more profitable; but as a considerable percentage of the 
men employed on the vessels have families or relatives in the Provinces, they have 
continued to urge upon the owners the necessity of obtaining bait in these localities, 
and it has been difficult to dissuade them. After the experience of the present year 
quite a number of other Gloucester owners and fishermen as well are convinced that 
it is on the whole better to substitute salt bait than to continue the old practice of 
leaving the Banks in the midst of the fishing season to obtain other kindsin the Prov- 
inces. That this opinionis shared by the Nova Scotia fishermen is proven by the fact 
that for some years they have been in the habit of purchasing large quantities of salt 
