30 



Do we have any draggers or scallopers here in the audience? 



I'd Hke to just ask you to stick to this one issue for a minute. 

 We'll come back. Would one of you like to react to Captain 

 Simonitsch's concept of closing Greorges Bank for 3 years to fishing 

 on both sides of the line? 



Mr. Slowe. Ben Slowe, been fishing 25 years. 



It's great you have no mortgage, you owe nobody money. Any- 

 body else here? I don't know of anybody else. I'm not in that situa- 

 tion. 



To close the bank, as I see it — I listen to everybody here, and the 

 most thing that I hear echoing through you and him is that you 

 believe this Canadian issue is going to happen again. To put it all 

 in one form, to stop the entry of cod fishing, I mean seafood coming 

 in from Canada would bring up our value of our fish more and we 

 would eat our own fish, and then we'd stay longer with less boats. 



We can't close the bank. It's easy to close a bank down for 3 

 years. What do we do with everybody's job up and down the coast? 

 We're all bankrupt. 



Senator Kerry. What do you do if you have no fish to catch? 



Mr. Slowe. We buy our own fish. We stop imports from Canada 

 coming in here. You go to jail, we eat our own. 



Senator Kerry. What happens if everybody continues to fish and 

 there are no fish left? Where will your job be? 



Mr. Slowe. We cut back the amount of time we fish. We don't 

 shut the bank. The price of our fish comes up. 



Let me tell you one thing about Canadian imports. Canadian im- 

 ports are shipped into New Bedford for one-half the price, so we 

 can sustain longer substantial amounts of time with less fish, less 

 fishing time. That's what else it can do, less fishing time. 



We do shut down, but we can't shut down all together. Most of 

 us are not fortunate to have no mortgage. I got a wife and a bunch 

 of kids. We're going to shut the bank down? 



Senator Kerry. I understand that. That is why I am asking this 

 question. 



To follow your thinking for a minute, let us assume that we just 

 do what you say, so you block Canadian fish, and basically then 

 you are sort of declaring war between you in terms of fishing. 



Mr. Slowe. They've already done that; haven't they? 



Senator Kerry. Let me finish. They go fishing as much as they 

 want, we go fishing as much as we want, you may get more for 

 your particular fish. 



Mr. Slowe. I didn't say that. Senator. I said that we cut back 

 on our fishing effort. We're able to do that if we eat our own fish 

 and stop the import. 



Let's do something first. You said it, Mr. Collins also said it, that 

 this is not going to be the first and last of this issue with the Cana- 

 dians. They're international waters. They got our men in jail today. 

 Doesn't make sense to me. 



Governor Weld has $6 million on the table for jails today. Is that 

 to put fishermen in there? 



Senator Kerry. Let us ask Captain Simonitsch what his re- 

 sponse would be to that suggestion. 



