106 Twenty-sixth Annual Meeting 



and we have made efforts in the Legislature to correct that. We 

 got together this year at the Legislature and we agreed on a bill. 

 The commission and the commercial fishermen, the pound net 

 fishermen and the gill net fishermen got together in a room oi 

 the House and eveiy fisherman present and the Fish Connnission 

 represented by Mr. Davis and myself, drafted a bill right there, 

 written by the clerk of that connnittee, and every fisherman 

 agreed to it and they all went home and agreed to help pass that 

 bill. Within forty-eight hours some of those same fishermen 

 were back there fighting that bill tooth and nail and continued 

 to fight it until the end. We also had a bill in the Legislature 

 regulating tlie size ui the meshes of nets. To show you whether 

 they honestly wanted the bill to pass or not — I am speaking at 

 least of some Michigan fishermen — our bill prescribed the size of 

 mesh of {jound nets as used, so when you found a man with ait 

 illegal sized mesh it was not necessary to go any further to estal)- 

 lish the size of the mesh, but they wiped that out and made the 

 bill read as to size of mesh "as manufactured." Under that act, 

 if you catch a man using a two and a half inch mesh and he pro- 

 duces a l>ill showing he purchased it for a three he is safe. He 

 can have it l)ille(l from the factory at three-inch mesh and nothing- 

 can be done with him. In order to not violate the law they 

 would order a two and a half inch mesh and have it billed at 

 three inches, and when they were arrested they would go on the 

 stand and swear they bought the legal size, as manufactured, and 

 produce their i)ill in support of it. Men admitted right before 

 that committee tlie\- knew of cases wlieie they had ordered nets 

 at two and a half inches and had tlieni billed at three. 



Mr. Whitaker: Michigan undoubtedly typifies to a greater 

 extent to-day the state against which the antagonism of the 

 fishermen has been aroused unjustl}-, more than any other state in 

 the union. We have constantly, as fish commissioners, brought 

 the product of the hatcheries up to the highest point. We have 

 been putting out into these waters for the last five or eight years 

 something like 150,000,000 to 160,000,000 of live whitefish. We 

 are doing it in the interests of the public, not in the interests of 

 the fishermen. Incidentally the fishermen reap the benefit but 

 the commission inaugurated this work for the benefit of the pub- 

 lic and for the preservation of a great food supply. We have 

 been in possession of the causes that are to-day slowly and 

 surely killing the great lake fisheries like a creeping paralysis. 

 We to-day know that that paralysis attacked Lake (3ntario thirty 



