112 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



Professor Hind's umvarranted statements. 



155. A voice of warning comes to us from the provinces. Professor 

 Hind writes : " It is not the fishermen alone who diminish the value of 

 the waters of the United States as food producers, it is the agriculturist, 

 the manufacturer, and the lumberer. If the supplies directly or indi- 

 rectly afforded by British- American coastal fisheries were suddenly anni- 

 hilated, the effect of the inquiries instituted under the direction of the 

 United States Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries would be at once 

 diverted against the fish-oil and fish-guano manufacturers as well as the 

 lumbering and other interests, which have so diminished the anadromous 

 species and destroyed the cod-fisheries on the New England coast. 

 What with the ravages of the bluefish and the demands of the industrial 

 interests named, the drain upon the United States waters is far beyond 

 the natural resources of the limited area in which the cod, the hake, the 

 halibut, and other deep-sea fish are sought. Hence recourse must be had 

 to British-American waters or the open sea remote from the coast of 

 the United States, and bait must be obtained to secure remunerative 

 fares. Without this bait the fishery would be commercially impossible j 

 with it, it becomes not only renumerative, but permits those special 

 fisheries which have fish-oil and fish-guano as their object to go on with- 

 out that legislative interference which would otherwise be invoked by a 

 powerful interest contemplating impending ruin and discerning its 

 cause.''* 



Comment is unnecessary. The facts above stated alone are a suffi- 

 cient commentary. 



Protective legislation in Maine. 



156. As this memoir goes to press, the question of legislative restric- 

 tions of the menhaden fisheries is being agitated in Maine. One of the 

 valuable results of this discussion has been the publication of Mr. Mad- 

 dock's report upon "The Menhaden Fishery of Maine," which is intended 

 to counteract the statements of the advocates of more stringent laws. 

 The proposed law is intended to prohibit fishing with seines in waters 

 within three miles of the shore. Mr. Maddock's remarks, quoted below, 

 seem very sensible and temperate, and I am prepared to indorse them : 



"In fact, where all the data point to the conclusion that the menhaden 

 while on our coast are being destroyed by predaceous enemies in greater 

 numbers every day than by man with all his appliances in a whole sea- 

 son, it would seem sheer unreason to establish a petty restriction of the 

 catch lest the stock should be ultimately exhausted. 



"No other State will be guilty of such folly, even if we should allow 

 our own to be. The effect of restricting the fishery, as referred to, would 

 be to drive the oil and guano manufacture and those engaged in it out 

 of the State, with all their capital and equipment, and to extinguish the 

 industrial activities set in operation by their business. The time for 



*HlND, op. di., p. 142. 



