480 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF FISHERIES. 



schooner of about 7 tons burden was fitted up with a gasoline engine. 

 Wells were built into the fore and aft holds of the vessel, and in these 

 the iish were to be kept alive until the selling port should be reached. 

 A fishing station had been established at Kaunakakai, on Molokai, and 

 seine, gill net, and line crews were to go from there to the fishing 

 banks near by, returning to the station when necessary with their 

 catch, which would be retained alive in a fish pond until the schooner 

 arrived. The first trip to Honolulu was on March 26th, and it was 

 the intention to make about two trips a week after the enterprise was 

 well started. 



The Inter-Island Live Fish and Cold Storage Company, of Honolulu, 

 formed in the spring of 1904, in addition to its comprehensive market 

 scheme for Honolulu, proposes to embark in the deep-sea fishing. The 

 small steamer Talula has been fitted up with wells for carrying the 

 fish alive, and her motive power has been changed from steam to 

 gasoline. It is the intention to use her in collecting fish from the fish- 

 ermen on the Koolau side of the island of Oahu, from Kahana to Wai- 

 manalo, and this will prove a great boon to the fisheries of that section, 

 for heretofore it has been impossible to reach a market except by a 

 difiicult 15-mile wagon trip across the island to Honolulu. The com- 

 pany has also the gasoline schooner Brothers^ which was built in 1902, 

 and has fitted her with wells and for use in transporting live fish from 

 fishing stations to be established on Molokai, Maui, Lanai, and Kahoo- 

 lawe, to Honolulu, the expectation being to make about three trips a 

 week. Both vessels will carry ice for refrigerating purposes, and such 

 fish as can not be kept alive will be placed in cold storage until marketed. 



Feeling against the Japanese fish dealers and fishermen has been 

 developing rapidl}^ during the last few j^ears. It is charged that native 

 fishermen have been driven out of business by Japanese control of the 

 fish markets and the refusal of the monopolists to pay the natives as 

 much as they pay their own countrymen for their catch. Also that by 

 securing a practical monopoly on certain islands the Japanese have been 

 able to raise the price to the consumer and otherwise to regulate the 

 markets to his disadvantage. The dealers at Hilo and Lahaina are 

 specifically charged with these offenses, while those of Honolulu are 

 thought to be rapidl}^ advancing toward the same methods. The 

 present investigation would seem to sustain these charges. The Japa- 

 nese dealers, and also the Japanese fishermen, have mutual associations 

 at Hilo, Lahaina, and Honolulu, and possibly at other places, and all 

 their business affairs are managed through the officers of these associ- 

 ations. As the Japanese form almost one-half of the total population 

 of the islands and are the principal consumers of fish, every effort is 

 made by these associations to secure and hold the trade of their own 

 people, and it has been charged that they even resort to the ostracism 

 of a countryman who buys from an outside dealer or fisherman when 



