BRITISH COLUMBIA, PROVINCE OP. 



ring, and salmon. The total value of the catch 

 between 1876 and 1899 was valued at $60,998,000. 

 In the latter year the value of the salmon fish- 

 eries was $4,007,396; of herring, .$37,450; of hali- 

 but, $103,750; and of fur-seals in the north, $441,- 

 825. The value of the fish for home consumption 

 -was placed at $350,000, and the general total at 

 $5,214,073. The number of fishermen was 23,806, 

 the vessels and boats 4,982, the salmon canneries 

 69, with a value of $1,380,000, and the total value 

 of all fishing-plants was $2,604,773. The value of 

 the product was $21,891,706. In 1901 the total 

 pack of salmon from Fraser river was 920,313 

 cases, against 316,522 cases in 1900. The price, 

 however, to the fishermen was only 10 or 12j 

 cents, against 19 and 20 cents in the preceding 

 year. 



On Feb. 22 a discussion took place in the House 

 of Commons at Ottawa as to the position of these 

 fisheries and the question of control. The Minis- 

 ter of Marine and Fisheries said that certain in- 

 spectors had been appointed or retained to look 

 after the enforcement of Dominion regulations as 

 to fishing and to fix the times and seasons in 

 which fish may be taken. " The local Government 

 have the sole and exclusive right, under the Privy 

 Council decision, to grant licenses for particular 

 localities; they get the fees and appoint officers 

 for that purpose. It is a divided jurisdiction, 

 and we appoint three officers in Ontario to 

 keep track of the manner in which our regu- 

 lations are observed, and report to us whether 

 these regulations are proper or not, and whether 

 they should be amended." He proceeded to point 

 out that " the exclusive power to make regula- 

 tions in connection with the fisheries is vested in 

 the Dominion Government, but the provinces of 

 Ontario and Quebec, having been declared by the 

 Privy Council to be the owners of the beds of the 

 rivers and lakes, they were held, a fortiori, to be 

 the owners of the fish in these rivers and lakes, 

 and it was held that the provinces had the exclu- 

 sive right to grant fishery leases of areas in these 

 lakes. Therefore the revenues which we formerly 

 derived from the issue of licenses are now handed 

 over to the provinces of Ontario and Quebec." The 

 minister admitted that there had been friction be- 

 tween the provinces and the Dominion upon this 

 subject. " There has been a disposition on the 

 part of the provincial governments to arrogate 

 power with regard to regulations which I do not 

 think they possess." Especially was this the 

 case with regard to what were termed " supple- 

 mentary regulations." Upon this point there had 

 been " more or less friction." But there was no 

 complaint as to the manner of administering the 

 recognized Dominion regulations. The Hon. E. G. 

 Prior, of Victoria, had asked why the Govern- 

 ment had not treated British Columbia in this re- 

 spect as it had Ontario and Quebec. The min- 

 ister replied that there was a wide distinction be- 

 tween lake and deep-sea fisheries. " In the mari- 

 time provinces the question whether the bed of the 

 sea from low-water mark to the three-mile limit 

 belongs to the province as a proprietary right, or 

 whether the Dominion has proprietary jurisdic- 

 tion over it, is a question not absolutely deter- 

 mined." He believed the Dominion to have the 

 right over seacoast fisheries. Mr. Prior then 

 drew attention to another branch of the same 

 subject. The Dominion revenue from Ontario 

 fisheries last year (1900) was $794; the Dominion 

 expenditure upon Ontario fisheries was $3,704. 

 In Quebec the revenue collected was $2,563, the 

 expenditure was $5,549. In Nova Scotia the rev- 

 enue was $5,494, the expenditure $27,461. In New 

 Brunswick the revenue was $12,015, the expendi- 



ture $21,459. But in British Columbia, whore the 

 Dominion revenue was $53,11)."), the expenditure 

 upon the fisheries was only $13,602. The reply 

 was that Mr. Prior would " find the expenditure 

 for the current year much larger." 



On April 30 the Hon. Mr. Prior again brought 

 up the question of the salmon fisheries of British 

 Columbia, and quoted from two important docu- 

 ments or memorials prepared by the Canncrs' As- 

 sociation of the province. This organization was 

 altogether in favor of provincial control of the 

 fisheries. He himself deprecated the present di- 

 vided jurisdiction under which the Dominion Gov- 

 ernment controlled the rivers below low-water 

 mark, and the provincial Government looked after 

 the rivers above low-water mark, so far as the 

 fish were concerned. He also presented the claim 

 of fishermen to be allowed to catch fish with 

 traps and seines, as the American canning men 

 did on the coast of their territory with the sal- 

 mon sweeping past on their return to the Fraser. 

 It was a great hardship. " Last year 2,269,245 

 pounds of salmon were bought by Canadian can- 

 ners from the American fishermen, who caught 

 our own salmon and sold them to us at a cost of 

 some hundred thousand dollars." The time waa 

 coming, according to authorities whom he re- 

 spected, when Americans would capture the most 

 of our salmon on their way back to their natural 

 spawning-grounds. He urged attention to this 

 matter, even while admitting its serious difficul- 

 ties and hesitating to express a personal opinion 

 as to the right course to pursue. But he strongly 

 advocated more hatcheries, and pointed to the 

 annual expenditure for this purpose of $50,000 in 

 the State of Washington. 



The Prime Minister thought this fishery ques- 

 tion had two sides to it. " The remedy proposed 

 by the honorable gentleman for the grievances of 

 the canners and I must say these grievances are 

 of long standing is to transfer the control of the 

 fisheries in the Columbia river to the province of 

 British Columbia. My honorable friend will find 

 on reflection that such a remedy could not be 

 thought of for a moment, because, under the Brit-, 

 ish North America act, the Government and Par- 

 liament are powerless in the matter. We can not 

 divest the province of any control which it has 

 under that act, nor can we divest the Dominion 

 of its control over any matter assigned to it by 

 our Constitution." 



Sir Louis Davies, in speaking for the De- 

 partment of Marine and Fisheries, declared that 

 there was no present indication of a falling off" 

 in the fisheries, and that there was not the 

 same necessity for hatcheries as there was at 

 the south. However, the Government was build- 

 ing one at Sicamons, and would build another 

 on the Skeena river and, if necessary, at the 

 River's Inlet. As to the matter of trap-nets, he 

 thought an industry worth $5,000,000 or $6,000,000 

 a year to the people of the province was too valu- 

 able to destroy in this way. In reply to a ques- 

 tion from Mr. Prior as to means for the preserva- 

 tion of the salmon as they came through Ameri- 

 can waters, the minister said that negotiations 

 on that point had reached an advanced stage when 

 they were broken off by the Alaskan boundary 

 question at the Washington conference. In any 

 case, British Columbia fishermen were not doing 

 badly in their own mode of legal operation. There 

 was an increase in 1899 over the previous year, 

 and he was glad to see that the large undeveloped 

 markets in Japan, China, and other Eastern coun- 

 tries were now being exploited.. His own judg- 

 ment was strongly against permitting the use of 

 trap-nets, and it was founded upon the advice of 



