160 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



" There are not now, nor have there ever been, treaty stipulations to 

 prevent British fishermen from entering American waters to buy bait, if 

 they prefer to do so. As a matter of fact, whatever menhaden bait 

 British fishermen use is either purchased from American dealers or from 

 Canadian traders, who import and keep it for sale like any other mer- 

 chandise. Eeference is made in the Answer to the possible contingency 

 of legislation prohibiting the export or sale of menhaden-bait, the im- 

 plied consequence being a serious disadvantage to Canadian fishermen 

 in prosecuting the mackerel fishery. It would, in such contingency, be 

 necessary to use other baits equally good, or resort to some other method 

 of fishing, sucli as that described at page 10, enabling the fishermen to 

 dispense with bait. Moreover, it is well known that menhaden are now 

 caught in the open sea, many miles distant from the American coast. 

 The Answer asserts, at page 19, that ' it is entirely an inshore fishery.' 

 It can be proved that menhaden are chiefly caught off shore, frequently 

 ' out of sight of land.' " 



Mr. S. L. Boardmau, of Augusta, Me., in an interesting report to the 

 State Board of Agriculture, of which he is secretary, published in 1875, 

 at page 60, says : 



" Parties engaged in taking menhaden now go off ten or twenty miles 

 from shore, whereas they formerly fished near the coast, and they now 

 find the best and ' most profitable fishing at that distance.' This fish 

 is included among the shore fishes described by Prof. S. F. Baird as 

 having suffered ' an alarming decrease ' along the inshores of the United 

 States, owing partly to excessive fishing throughout their spawning time 

 in order to supply the oil-factories." 



Chapter 5 of the Answer deals with "the specific benefits which the 

 treaty directs the Commission to regard in its corajjarison and adjust- 

 ment of equivalents." The admission of Britsh subjects to United States 

 fishing grounds has been dealt with at length in the third chapter of the 

 Case, There is nothing in the Answer on this subject calling for any 

 reply excepting the statement at page 20, that Dominion fishermen 

 '•• have in the United States waters to-day over 30 vessels equipped for 

 seining, which in company with the American fleet are sweeping the 

 shores of New England." Leaving out of question the "American 

 fleet," which has nothing whatever to do with the matter, the correct- 

 ness of the statement is directly challenged in so far as it implies that 

 these 30 vessels or any of them are British bottoms, owned by Dominion 

 fishermen ; and the United States is hereby called ujion to produce evi- 

 dence in its support. 



Eeferences in the testimony and affidavits. 



222. In the testimony and affidavits presented by the United States 

 counsel,* referred to in the biography of the menhaden appended to 

 this memoir and quoted to some extent in paragraphs 188-189, are many 



* Proceedings of the Halifax Commission, Appendices L and M. 



