io THE ERASER RIVER SALMON SITUATION. 



Labour, Washington, D.C., and Dr. Hugh M. Smith, Commissioner 

 of Fisheries for the United States, representing the United States. 

 The Commission held sittings in Seattle, Wash., and Vancouver, 

 B.C., during the summer of 1918, and in the fall of that year 

 embodied in a report to their respective Governments their unani- 

 mous findings, which resulted in the convention of 1919. That 

 convention provides for " the times, seasons, and methods of sockeye- 

 salmon fishing in the Fraser River system " and for " the conduct of 

 investigations into the life-history of the salmon, hatchery methods, 

 spawning-ground conditions, and other related matters " by an 

 International Fisheries Commission, to consist of four persons, two 

 to be named by each of the high contracting parties, and that the 

 convention shall remain in force for fifteen years, and thereafter for 

 two years from the date when either shall give notice of desire to 

 terminate it. The convention has been signed by both Governments, 

 approved by the Canadian Government, and is now awaiting the 

 approval of the United States Senate. 



The American Government up to 1918 had expended $125,000,000 

 on capital account to reclaim 1,100,000 acres of arid lands. The 

 100,000 persons that lived on the 25,000 farms of that area in 1917 

 produced a crop worth $50,000,000. The lake-waters of the Fraser 

 River basin cover an area of 1,514,000 acres that when seeded by 

 spawning sockeye as abundantly as they were seeded in 1897, 1901, 

 1905, and 1909 will produce annually a run of sockeye salmon from 

 which may be taken sufficient fish to fill 1,927,602 cases, worth 

 $30,000,000, without an overdraft on the run. The 1,514,000 acres 

 of spawning area of the Fraser River basin are now almost as non- 

 productive as were the 1,100,000 acres of arid lands of the United 

 States before that Government expended $125,000,000 to bring them 

 under cultivation. The spawning area of the Fraser basin requires 

 no expenditure to bring it into bearing. Appropriations for capital 

 expenditure and upkeep are not required. The workers do not require 

 dwellings or implements. Cultivation is unnecessary. If permitted to 

 reach the beds the fish will seed them, the young will feed themselves, 

 furnish their own transportation to and from their feeding and 

 maturing ranges in the open sea. The fish will do all the work 

 necessary to produce a crop worth $30,000,000 a year, provided the 

 Governments of Canada and the United States will furish to a suffi- 

 cient number of them safe passage through the fishing-grounds of the 

 Fraser River system. 



