96 American Fisheries Society 



only our own, but your own, and Canada's own, supply of 

 food fish of this variety, for, if it has not already, it surely 

 will become the dumping ground of the immature and il- 

 legally taken fish of your state and province, to the disgrace 

 of the state and the jeopardy of the food fish supply of the 

 continent; and this condition exists today, gentlemen, as a 

 result of the insistence of politicians and the paid efforts of 

 attorneys for the fish trust, cold-storage men and dealers, 

 whose principles of doing business recognizes no delay in the 

 taking of profits and brook no interference with their meth- 

 ods of conduct in business. Let us not deceive ourselves by 

 believing that one point gained by these men opposed to the 

 proper protection of fish life, as exhibited by legislative 

 action in Pennsylvania and New York, will satisfy them, for 

 it is here stoutly maintained that such successful breaking 

 down of protective legislation will prove an encouragement 

 to further encroachment upon laws protecting other varieties 

 and in other states, thereby proving a menace to all legisla- 

 tion protecting fish life. 



This is not all. Look at figures a moment. The Census 

 Hnreau at Washington, in 1909 report, states the value of 

 whitefish fisheries for that year to have been $524,650; 

 while the United States in 1910, on that portion of the 73,- 

 000,000 pounds of fish sent to us from Canada that year, 

 paid in duties alone $463,663. These latter figures were 

 taken from the "Reciprocity Report,'" which shows a total 

 value of food fish and fish products for that year from 

 Canada alone of $4,920,236. Expensive, is it not? Duties 

 paid for year 1910 almost equal in value the total catch of 

 whitefish in United States for 1909. Neither is this all. 

 The worst is in prospect, and will be given as briefly as 

 possible. The Canadian people now chafe under the situa- 

 tion that has arisen through the organization of an American 

 monopoly to control the Canadian Great Lakes and other 

 fisheries, the operation of which, in order to supply the in- 

 satiable demands of the great cities of the United States, 

 deprive the Canadian people, and to their great injury, of 



