Prince. — Territorial Waters 187 



The great salmon fisheries both on the Atlantic and Pacific 

 coasts require a larger limit than three miles, if they are to be 

 safeguarded in the future. We know that on the Pacific coast 

 the King or Quinnat salmon do not wander far from the rivers 

 in which they spawn, probably twenty-five miles distance is the 

 limit, but the great schools of sockeye salmon no doubt go further 

 out, and descend into deep water to their feeding grounds. To 

 protect these fish when approaching the estuaries of the most 

 famous salmon rivers, a larger limit than three miles is essential. 



There has always been the danger that Oriental nations might 

 find it worth their while to send their fishermen across to the 

 Pacific shores of the United States and Canada, and by the use of 

 purse-seines, and other destructive implements, within five or 

 ten miles of shore, destroy great masses of fish before they reach 

 the estuaries or inshore waters, just as the French, Portuguese, and 

 other European nations found it worth while to cross the Atlantic 

 and exploit the cod and other fishing banks on our eastern Atlantic 

 shores. The danger on the western coast is not imaginary, for 

 fishing vessels from Asia have already visited American inshore 

 grounds close to territorial limits. One such vessel, the Japanese 

 halibut schooner, "Sunburst," was wrecked in the summer of 

 1908, while fishing close to Victoria, B. C. 



It is claimed that larger territorial limits would ward off 

 many of the dangers, to which reference has been made, and 

 would ensure that salmon and other fish within ten or twelve 

 miles from the coast would be free from the risk of reckless 

 destruction by foreign fishermen. In the interest of the fisheries 

 of most countries, a wider territorial jurisdiction is urgent, and 

 would ultimately be beneficial even to other nations more distant 

 who would gain by the plentitude of fish that would ensue. 



In recent years there have been numerous respesentations 

 in favor of a larger territorial area, and in 1893 one of the most 

 prominent Parliamentary advocates of British fisheries protection 

 and preservation, the late Lord Tweedmouth, strongly advocated 

 a limit of six miles as desirable for adoption by maritime nations 

 generally. He had been chairman of various fishery commissions 

 in Britain, and was looked upon as the mouthpiece of fishing 

 interests in the British House of Commons, and his emphatic 

 opinion after long years of experience was, that the present limits 



