300 Fortieth Annual Meeting 



public of the importance of the fisheries : I have found all 

 through the Province of Ontario that the people are more 

 or less apathetic upon these questions and do not, as a 

 general rule, realize the interests which they have at stake. 

 I have found, however, under the continually advancing 

 price of foodstuffs, of which you are well aware, that 

 when it was explained to people that did they take a greater 

 interest in these questions there would ensue a cheapening 

 of fish food, they immediately became interested, more 

 particularly so when it was pointed out to them that by 

 bringing their influence to bear on their representatives in 

 both the federal parliament and local legislature, especially 

 where such members represented the principal cities of 

 Ontario, they could materially hasten this end inasmuch 

 as the influence of a handful of net fishermen would 

 speedily be diminished. As a matter of fact, I may tell 

 you that if you take one portion of Lake Ontario, namely, 

 the Bay of Ouinte, which undoubtedly is the natural spawn- 

 ing ground of the bulk of the whitefish in the Canadian 

 waters of the lake, 250 net fishermen have for 40 years 

 practically dictated what the regulations should be. There 

 are 350,000 persons in the city of Toronto alone, yet 

 through ignorance and apathy they have allowed those 250 

 votes to bring about a condition by which the very lake 

 that laves the front of the city has not for a good many 

 seasons given them (and, in fact, may be said to be prac- 

 tically incapable at the present time of yielding them) a 

 reasonably adequate supply of fish food. 



Many schemes and methods for improving the fisheries 

 are devised, many regulations have been enacted, most of 

 which have, at least, some good points about them; but I 

 take it that you will all agree that the main difficulty is to 

 get the scheme, method, or regulation carried out. To 

 achieve this, the people, the general public, must first be 

 interested. Therefore, if a way is open to you in any way 

 to influence the people in the direction of supporting the 

 regulations or methods that you recommend or that happen 

 to be in force, why not take it ? 



