36 TWENTY-EIGHTH ANNUAL MEETING 



Now, if YOU are going to give any force and effect to this 

 worlv of propagation you have got to act lionevStly in it. It is 

 not the province of a commission to do anytliing but its whole 

 duty. Let us not magnify the importance of our office, nor be 

 swallowed up with the idea alone that we are Commissioners. 

 Let us thoroughly appreciate that we are public officers 

 charged with a public duty, and that we must not temporize 

 with people who are attempting to destroy their own privi- 

 leges. Let us act faithfully and honestly. That is our w^ork. 

 That is the moral side of it. If you want to take the other side, 

 take it. Does it pay? INIichigan has put into its waters since 

 the Commission was established one thousand million white- 

 fish. One billion. The ITnited States Commission in the same 

 time has x>robably put in a quarter more — perhaps I am under- 

 stating it. But those are large figures, and what is the result? 

 Our whitefish fisheries had fallen from eight millions — and no 

 one knows how much more, because those were the figures 

 when we first took statistics in 1890 — to three millions. The 

 statement is made that these fisheries have increased within 

 the last two years. Nobody can really tell that, for this rea- 

 son, that it has not been taken for the last two years; it is be- 

 ing taken now for the last of the two 3'ears mentioned. We 

 get our statistics by going to the fishermen and asking them 

 what their catch is. What is the situation, and what is the 

 animus that has controlled these fishermen? Two years ago 

 a close season law was passed. They got out an injunction 

 against the warden to restrain him from enforcing the law. 

 It was a most novel proceeding, and the judge who enjoined 

 him was reprimanded, on appeal, by the Supreme Court, for 

 having proceeded in that way. But that is the course they 

 took and they succeeded in staving oft' matters, for practically 

 the whole season. They intended to come to the Legislature 

 last year to abolish that law, and they had to come well fortified, 

 and the}' came there claiming an increase in the last two years. 

 From an examination I made of the statistics I found, I think, 

 there were only two varieties that showed an increase. One 

 was herring and the other was whitefish. I took one small 

 district, and the figures showing increase of whitefish were 

 astounding; the first time it had shown an increase since we 

 have known anything about it. These figures are open to 

 challenge the same as are the facts in a case before a jury. 

 Now, do we care nothing for this condition of things? The 

 fact is, your fisheries are going. You have got to have some 

 practical way in which you can bring about protection. You 

 cannot restore the stock by propagating fish alone. I know as 

 well as any one how effective that work is. I am not disput- 

 ing that proposition. You can do better in the way of artificial 



