186 American Fisheries Society 



ried on for fifty-two years by the department, has been re- 

 cently transferred to the Census Bureau of the Dominion, 

 it is impossible to question the incalculable benefit to the Cana- 

 dian fisheries which this far-reaching system of protection and 

 conservation has accomplished during more than half a cen- 

 tury. Professor G. Brown Goode did simple justice to the 

 wonderful organization inaugurated by the fathers of con- 

 federation, when he said at the Great Fisheries Exhibition in 

 London, in 1883, of the Fisheries Department in Ottawa, that 

 "there was nothing elsewhere to be compared to it." 



Discussion 



President Avery : We are certainly very much indebted to Professor 

 Prince for this very valuable historical paper. I feel that we do not 

 realize the importance of the fisheries of Canada in their relation to the 

 United States. We obtain a great portion of our fish supply from 

 Canada; we are, therefore, directly interested in the development of 

 Canada's fish resources. 



Professor Prince: Mr. President and gentlemen, I cannot rise on 

 this occasion without expressing extreme gratification — and I am sure 

 that in this sentiment I am joined by all other Canadians present — at the 

 fact that the American Fisheries Society at last meets in Ottawa. The 

 occasion is all the more interesting because this is the jubilee meeting of 

 the Society, which is now celebrating in the Canadian capital fifty years 

 of valuable and useful existence. I think that this is a unique 

 historic event and one which calls for special reference, par- 

 ticularly on the part of Canadians. I thought that it might interest you 

 to hear something of the succession of events which has led up to the 

 federal system of fisheries administration in Canada, — a system much 

 ia contrast with that obtaining in the United States. 



