42 AMERICAN FISHERIES SOCIETY. 



{g) A reasonable and equitable system of license, which will 

 furnish the means to pay the cost of inspection and regulation, 

 and also of replenishing and keeping up the stock by artificial 

 propagation. 



There is one more requisite which cannot be provided by 

 statute law, the spread of reliable information of our purposes 

 and operations among the fishermen and fishing communities, 

 which will create a strong public opinion in support of the laws 

 and their stict and just enforcement. 



It has been urged that this whole business of fishery regulation 

 should be undertaken by the Federal Government, so far at 

 least as the fisheries of the Great Lakes are concerned. Is there 

 any reason why the Federal Government should undertake the 

 establishment and enforcement of fishery regulations in the 

 States bordering the Great Lakes, that does not apply with equal 

 force to the obligation of assuming the burden of the other de- 

 partment, that of restocking and maintaining the supplies of fish 

 in the same waters? 



The reasons for this course or the desirability of it are not to 

 my mind clear. The subject of fishery regulation is one, even 

 if it were a new and open question, which seems from the very 

 necessities of the case to be so local, domestic and municipal in 

 its character as to fall naturally within the police power of the 

 several States, and not within any defined powers of the Federal 

 jurisdiction, legislative or judicial. But it is no longer an open 

 question. It has been passed upon by the courts of last resort 

 in almost all the States, as well as by the Supreme Court of the 

 United States. And this view seems to have been adopted by 

 all the States that have established fishery regulations, however 

 meagre and insufficient, as well as to have been acquiesced in by 

 the United States Congress by a century of silence. 



But what can the practical art of fish-culture as above defined 

 (although but briefly and imperfectly outlined) do for the fish- 

 eries of the Great Lakes ? What promise does it give which 

 will warrant the expenditure of public funds in its prosecution? 

 I hardly need to make answer before this assembly of its dis- 

 ciples, or rather its discoverers; but that same echo, however 

 faint, of these questions and the answer, may possibly reach the 



