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fishermen and fish dealers, to the effect that our laws should 

 cover three vital points: 



1st. To regulate the size of the meshes of nets, the times 

 and places of fishing. 



2d. The market size of the various valuable kinds of fish. 



3d. The employment and authorization of competent State 

 ofificers to enforce the regulations and inspect the products 

 being marketed ; and there should be confided to the chief 

 of^cer discretionary power to suspend, within prescribed limits, 

 the regulation respecting the apparatus, when such suspension 

 will not result in the destruction of immature fish, and may be 

 an advantage to the fishermen. 



Regulations should be as general, as exact and as simple 

 as is compatible with efificiency, in order that they may not be 

 oppressive or obscure. Of course, each State must enact its 

 own laws. Each State has exclusive jurisdiction of its waters 

 to its boundary line ; this on the Great Lakes is a matter of 

 great importance. It has many times been suggested by per- 

 sons who had not examined thoroughly the question of juris- 

 diction, that Congress could better provide for the regulation 

 of the fisheries of the Great Lakes, because these waters 

 bordered so many different States. This question has been 

 settled once for all by the Supreme Court of the United States, 

 so that whatever of advantage Federal legislation on this sub- 

 ject may seem to offer, it is a legal and constitutional impos- 

 sibility, and must be dismissed. The States must do all there 

 is to be done, and do it in their own several ways. Thus far 

 it has been badly done, — or to speak more accurately, has not 

 been done at all. Can there be any co-operation between the 

 States to remedy this evil ? There ought to be, is plain. And 

 the fact of its recognized necessity ought to bring about, 

 eventually, an affirmative answer. The force of a substantial 

 and efificient example is the only constraint that can be brought 

 to bear. When any one of the States bordering the Great 

 Lakes wall enact laws that are effective, its example will be 

 followed. 



Full and candid discussion between the fishery of^cers of 

 the different States will be useful, and ought to be employed 

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