Prince. — Fishery Administration in Canada 175 



fisheries are mainly due? I have mentioned the names of the 

 cabinet ministers at the head of the department in successive 

 Governments, most of them deeply interested in the welfare 

 of the fisheries; but the deputy ministers must not be for- 

 gotten, though in most instances they were chiefly concerned 

 with marine and shipping matters. William Smith, the first 

 Deputy Minister, was a sturdy and assiduous Scotsman, born 

 in Leith, Scotland, and an imperial customs officer at St. John, 

 N. B., but for nearly thirty years known as "Fishery Smith," 

 or more irreverently as "Fishery Bill," during which long 

 period he was the official head of the Department. Honest 

 John Hardie, who was connected by marriage with the first 

 appointed Minister, Hon. Peter Mitchell, acted for a time on 

 Mr. Smith's retirement. Col. F. F. Gourdeau, Mr. Alexander 

 Johnston, and Mr. G. J. Desbarats, also performed the duties 

 of deputy or executive head, but I must not omit Col. John 

 Tilton, who was Deputy Minister of Fisheries from 1884 to 

 1892, when the marine branch had its own deputy, and fisher- 

 ies had a separate deputy, a condition changed when the title 

 of Commissioner of Fisheries was revived, and when I was 

 given the position in October, 1892. Deputy Minister Smith 

 on resuming the title of Deputy Minister of Marine and Fish- 

 eries, shared with me much of the administrative work in the 

 Department. 



The First Commissioner of Fisheries: W. F. 

 Whitcher. — It is simply mere justice to refer to the great 

 services rendered by such men as Mr. W. F. Whitcher, who 

 held high office for nine years (from 1869 to 1877), and who 

 signed the annual fisheries reports, which also bore the sig- 

 nature of the Minister himself. Mr. Whitcher did an enor- 

 mous amount of work, and was most untiring in the task 

 of inspecting the fisheries, so that his published reports are of 

 great interest; but his conspectus of the fishery articles in 

 fishery treaties between Britain and the United States con- 

 cerning Canadian fisheries, printed in 1870, is one of the best 

 summaries available, and is a masterly synopsis of the points 



