FIFTEENTH ANNUAL MEETING. 



45 



with reference to the fisheries I tliink is very slight, and tlie im- 

 portance of preventing the capture of small fish is not bv anv 

 means an insignificant part of rearing marketable fish in great 

 numbers. A single man with a pound net, such as I know of 

 near the straits of Mackinaw, where he couldn't find anv net 

 with a mesh that was small enough, he used sacking for the 

 back of his pound net so nothing could get through. Such 

 a man as that might destroy a quarter or a tentli of the pri^duct 

 of one of our large hatcheries. 



There is another thing in that connection. I say these fishers 

 must be licensed, not only as a part of the exercise of police 

 power, but to protect the citizens of the State. Now, it would 

 not be fair if the State of Illinois were spending fifteen to 

 twenty thousand dollars to stock the shores of Illinois and 

 Michigan with whitefish, for my friend Dewey to come over here 

 and catch all those fish and ship them to Toledo and Cleveland; 

 neither is it right that the people of Illinois and of the citv of 

 Chicago, should be fed with fish which we have planted in the 

 waters of Michigan. Now, for that reason I want the fisheries of 

 Michigan to be licensed. I want a regulation which will pre- 

 vent Mr. Booth from coming into our territory and catching 

 our fish unless he pays a license. I know Mr. Booth will do it. 

 He would be very glad for the right to use good fishing ground, 

 just as any of us gentlemen would be very glad to pay for the right 

 to fish in a pond where we knew there were three pound trout 

 in great numbers.. Now, when we get to that point, tiie fees 

 that will result from a very reasonable and very low license, our 

 fishing will not only pay all the cost of regulation and inspec- 

 tion, but it will pay all the cost of hatching and planting as 

 many as Mr. Booth thinks we ought to plant in Lake Michigan. 

 It will pay for hatching and planting six or eight times the fifty 

 millions that we are now hatching. 



One other thing has been alluded to and that is the questitjn 

 of what the United States Government should do. I said in my 

 paper very briefly that the question of the regulation of the 

 fisheries was officially settled. It has been settled for more than 

 thirty years, although it has not been generally understood. 

 The United States Supreme Court has passed definitelv and 



