INTERNATIONAL REGULATIONS OF FISHERIES ON THE HIGH SEAS. 85 
whether that industry can be established on this side. Thus you may possibly have 
in a very short time to deal with difficulties such as we have had to deal with, namely, 
the interference caused by a method of fishing, such as the trawl, with older- estab- 
lished methods, such as the long line, or what you know as the “bultow” or with the 
“drift net.” 
When steam was introduced as a means of propulsion of trawling vessels, it became 
very much more easy for the trawler to force its way through the drift nets, or to sweep 
up the long lines, than when a vessel was propelled merely by sail. And a very repre- 
hensible practice was adopted by a certain number of fishermen who actually. carried 
with them to sea cutting grapnels, which enabled them to cut into the nets with which 
they came in contact, and very great damage was done by one class of fishermen to an- 
other class in this way. This is an illustration of the protection of fishermen against 
their colleagues. Now, as soon as this practice was brought to the notice of the powers 
interested, in the North Sea fisheries especially, they again entered into an international 
agreement to put this practice down, and heavy penalties were imposed upon the pos- 
session of the instrument in question, which was known by the somewhat significant 
title of ‘‘devil.’”’ The devil has been abolished, in that shape at any event, from the 
North Sea. 
I do not know whether I am passing the time limit or not. 
The PRESIDENT. Just a minute or two more. 
Mr. Fryer. One other matter in which it is possible to protect the firemen is 
with respect to the outfit of the vessels, and the prevention of collisions at sea, and in 
things of that sort, which also have become the subject of international regulation. In 
such questions as the carrying of lights for particular purposes, not only the nations of 
western Europe but practically all the nations of the world have agreed to an inter- 
national code, which I think I may refer to fairly as an illustration of the link which 
exists among all nations in the waters of the high seas in which the great fisheries are 
prosecuted. 
I should like to enlarge upon the idea which suggests itself as soon as we begin to 
speak of the ocean as a link. We speak of it commonly as a means of division between 
nations, but I think that the suggestion may be maintained that the water is rather a 
connecting link. It is much more a connecting link than it is a means of dividing of 
the nations. In this room we have an illustration of the fact that the subject of fish, and 
the element in which the fisheries are conducted, has led to the bringing together of a 
large body of gentlemen from all parts of the world; and if the question of the inter- 
national regulation for fisheries on the high seas can lead, as I hope it may in the future, 
to more harmonious and fraternal relations among the nations of the earth, we shall 
be entering upon quite a different era from that of the past, when the question of fisheries 
was a question sometimes nearly, if not actually, of war, and led at any rate to anything 
but fraternal relations. But I think the longer we study and the more we know of these 
matters, the more we regard them from the point of view not of our own local interests, 
but as interests uniting nation to nation, the better it will be, not only for the fishers 
themselves, but for the general welfare of those nations who are so largely interested in 
them in common. [Applause.] 
Dr. B. W. EvERMANN (U. S. Bureau of Fisheries). Ladies and gentlemen of the 
congress, this matter of the international control of the fisheries on the high seas suggests 
to me that it might be worth while for a word to be said regarding a step which the 
Governments of Great Britain and the United States have recently taken looking to the 
control of the fisheries in international waters. As you are doubtless aware, the fisheries 
in the international waters between the United States and Canada are of great importance. 
There are a number of important lakes—four of the Great Lakes, and smaller lakes con- 
nected with them—the St. Lawrence River and those other waters to the eastward; and 
then of equal or even greater importance are the fisheries on the west coast, those in 
the Puget Sound and Fraser River region. The fisheries in those international waters 
