Prince. — Fishery Administration in Canada 171 



Lobster Industry and Other Omissions. — No mention 

 of the lobster is made at all, no prohibition of the use of 

 edible fish for fertilizer purposes, and only a bare reference 

 to whale fishing, in which industry explosives were forbidden ; 

 and there is no reference to the great salmon and lobster can- 

 ning enterprises, which have formed the subject of much nec- 

 essary later regulation. After I became Commissioner of 

 Fisheries in 1893, the necessity of establishing licenses for 

 lobster fishing and salmon canning seemed to me urgent in 

 order to protect and regulate them; but I found that most of 

 the older departmental officers opposed my suggestions, be- 

 cause canning was not a fishing operation, and lobstering was 

 not "a fishery in law." My reply was : "Make lobstering a 

 fishery in law, demand a lobster fishing permit or license, and 

 bring salmon canning under the act." Many years later, it 

 is hardly necessary for me to say, both these early proposals 

 of mine were embodied in the Canadian fishery laws. Dur- 

 ing the last twenty-five or thirty years the oyster, lobster. Pa- 

 cific salmon, and other fisheries, have been the subject of in- 

 numerable regulations, chiefly in the form of Orders in 

 Council. 



Advantage and Danger of Orders in Council. — An 

 Order in Council is a law passed by the Canadian cabinet 

 without recourse to Parliament, and having the force of an 

 act of Parliament as already pointed out. It is a ready and 

 speedy method of accomplishing legislation, and the fishery 

 act provides that Orders in Council amending parts of the 

 act shall have the force of the statute or act itself. There 

 is a danger perhaps in this procedure, for hasty legislation 

 is not always good legislation, and a statute of Parliament 

 has greater weight and importance in popular estimation, but 

 legislation sanctioned by "The Governor General in Council," 

 to use the correct phrase, saves the time of Parliament and 

 on the whole is a great advantage to the country. 



Lobster Regulation Started 1873. — ^Lobster legisla- 

 tion has been prominent during the last 40 years, the first 



