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size, but you know how a gill net is made, probably, and if the fish of the pro- 

 hibited size gets into the gill net he is caught and he is dead, and when he is 

 dead he might as well be used as thrown back into the water. So with your 

 pound net; if the size of the mesh at the back of the trap is small 

 enough so that he does not escape, he is captured. The advantage of 

 the gill net over the pound net ia that the pound net preserves the fish 

 alive until they get into the boat, and those taken by the gill net are dead 

 anyway and might as well be used. The thing we need in Michigan is 

 not so much laws to protect fish, as it is a proper enforcement of the laws we 

 already have. Of course we are a large fishing State and the capital invested 

 there is very large. The people interested in fishing and the communities 

 interested in fishing are large and extensive. We have had a long struggle there 

 to satisfy these practical fishermen— many of them who are, or were at least, in 

 the early days somewhat ignorant and illiterate people. At the present time the 

 fishing interests are being largely centered in large concerns who employ the 

 smaller fishermen to fish for them. We have found great difficulty in getting 

 the people to believe in the efficacy of planting fish. We have now, after several 

 years, got them educated. The day has come when we have no difficulty in go- 

 ing to the legislature for and getting any reasonable amount. We ask for pro- 

 tection of fish, and we find it has helped us in that line, that we have divorced 

 the protective and prohibitive administration of the law from the propagation. 

 We intend to especially give our attention to the propagation and distrilDution of 

 the fry. We ha,ve this to contend with. We have passed a la w appointing a Fish and 

 Game warden, and authorizing the game warden to appoint deputies, the deputies 

 to be paid as the supervisors shall approve ; the difficulty is, you get intoactmnty 

 where the supervisors are not fishermen. What sort of a salary do you think the 

 game warden would get there for fighting the interests of the fishermen ? And 

 they have their political influence, and the result is, in the parts of the country 

 where the law should be most rigidly enforced, the feeling is more against it on 

 account of the fishing interests there, and by reason of the law being put in the 

 hands of political tools of the supervisors. Power for protecting the fishing inter- 

 ests should be put into the hands of the State officer, who should employ deputies 

 who should be paid by the State, and should not be residents of the locality 

 where the law is to be enforced, as such deputies would not be affected by a desire 

 to shield their neighbours. 



Now upon the general question which I say I feel much more interested in,. 

 — although all questions suggested here are of much interest to us, — the question 

 which has stirred us up more than anything else proposed in your proceedings 

 was the proposition practically to turn over the fisheries of the great lakes to 

 the United States Goveinment. Our Commission at its last meeting, taking into 

 consideration the letter which was addressed to Dr. Parker of our Board, passed 

 unanimously a resolution deprecating any such idea, which resolution I hope at 

 a later time to present to this Board and to be heard further upon. Permit 

 me to say here, in advance, that the line which seems to be proposed by that 

 movement is directly opposed to the line which the Canadian Commission 

 seems, as Mr. Stewart says, now to be seeking to carry out. Instead of 

 centralising the matter in the Dominion Government, they are seeking there 

 to have the Provinces have it. Now the situation to-day in this country is, as 

 I understand it — and I was a little surprised at the letter of Mr. Dunning in con- 

 nection with it — the situation to-day, as I understand it, is that Congress and 

 the United States Government have no control whatever over the fishing 

 interests of these great lakes ; the whole subject is in the hands of the separate 

 states. Congress cannot control it if it would. I desire to have considerable to 

 ^ay upon that subject. 



