257 



Michigan and also Senator McNaughton struck the key-note when they said the 

 State Commissioners should control those things : I think it would be a dangeroua 

 precedent for the United States government to get control of the Fish Com- 

 missioners along the chain of our inland lakes and the St. Lawrence River. 



Every petty office on the chain of lakes would be a political office. We would 

 not only see it in our Presidential, but in Our State and county elections, and it. 

 would be a political question, and something which ought not to exist. And I 

 wish to concur in the remarks of those same gentlemen, in regard to fish food^ 

 "We all know that the man who eats a speckled trout to-day has a luxury ; and we 

 also know that while white fish were common fish a few years ago, the man wha 

 eats them to-day has virtually a luxury ; the labouring man, the mechanic and the 

 farmer cannot get them any more easily than they can the speckled trout. And 

 I think the views of these gentlemen on that point are the key-notes in that 

 respect ; I fully concur on that point ; but I came here as a representative of the- 

 Anglers' Association. My interest is mostly in the St. Lawrence River. "We 

 have in the St. Lawrence River about twenty-five miles covered by parks, hotela 

 and cottage^ and have S3,000,000 invested in parks, mostly by foreigners and 

 strangers, that is they are foreigners to our river. "What brings them there ? The 

 St. Lawrence River for one thing, and the fishing in the St. Lawrence River for- 

 another. We have thousands on the St. Lawrence River, at the Thousand Islands,, 

 every year who come for fishing, and we feel with the large amount of money 

 that is invested there, that something ought to be done by our Legislature to pro-^ 

 tect the fishing. "We know the gentlemen that composed the Codification 

 Committee. Our Chairman, General Sherman, who succeeded Governor Sey-. 

 mour, and Mr. Roosevelt one of the first Commissioners appointed by our State, 

 and Deputy Attorney-General Wbittaker made a committee we all felt pleased 

 with ; and the sporting men of our State, and the frequenters ot the St., 

 Lawrence River were pleased with that committee and knew that we would 

 get a law that would be right and satisfactory to all, and which would 

 protect all our interests ; the Anglers' Association had the privilege of meeting- 

 these gentlemen on the St. Lawrence River. They came there to look the matter 

 over ; we told them our grievances, and they said, what do you want ? "We 

 replied, we want a prohibitory law ; a law that would prohibit net fishing in the^ 

 St. Lawrence River. And when the Codification Committee prepared new lawa 

 we were pleased to see that these gentlemen had recommended a prohibitorj- law 

 on the St. Lawrence River ; but a prohibitory law on the American side does not 

 protect us ; we want Mr. Stewart and his Canadian colleagues to give us the 

 same law on the Canadian side that we have on the American side. We hope 

 they will give us a prohibitory law ; that the fish on the American side will not. 

 go over into Canada waters and be gobbled up by the Canadian net pirates. The- 

 Americans will watch on our side, but the Canadians will camp on the Canadian 

 islands and go over in the American waters to set their nets. We have Eel Bay 

 and a number of other bays there that by nature are the natural breeding grounds, 

 for fish, and the Canada netters come over and try to exterminate our fish, and 

 they would exterminate them but for the Angler's Association. We have taken 

 hundreds of nets and burned them up. The Codification Committee have ren- 

 dered a bill that pleases us but it has not become a law. This section was. 

 amended, and that section was amended, and the result was we had no law, owing 

 to the deadlock in the Senate ; we were virtually at sea again ; and, as Senator- 

 McNaughton said, this (modification Committee virtually wiped out 239 Fish and 

 Game laws and they have got it simplified in this bill they presented. But for^ 

 the unfortunate dead-lock in our Senate last winter the bill would have been a 

 law now. That seems to be the opinion of the legislators of 1891 that I have- 

 talked with on the subject. 

 17 (c.) 



