618 <!APPENDIX TO BRITISH CASE. 



officers are unjustly criticised, or condemned for not doing such work 

 properly. 



I have dwelt upon this incident in our tariff legislation because it 

 makes clear, even to the superficial observer, how r man's inventions and 

 improved methods of rapid communication by steam, not only crowd 

 down prices, and extend the saleable area of one article after another, 

 year by year, and month by month, but even modify the necessary 

 interpretation to be given to classifications in our taxing laws. One 

 hundred and three years ago, when the treaty of peace was signed, 

 which apportioned the British Empire in America and its rights of 

 fishing, between the British Government and the thirteen inde- 

 pendent American States, railways and steam engines were prac- 

 tically unknown, and the use of ice as now applied in the fishing 

 industry, was also unknown. Even half a century ago the purchase 

 and enjoyment of fresh fish as food was confined to places near the 

 spot where the fish were caught. Thus it has come to pass that ice 

 and railways have changed, even since 1870, the most obvious defini- 

 tion and the strictly literal application of the phrase in our tariff law, 

 " fish, fresh, for immediate consumption." Such causes of change 

 are constantly occurring as to other articles, by reason of modifica- 

 tions in methods of production, new combinations of component ma- 

 terra-K new nomenclature ad" new commercial classifications, which 

 enforce the need of frequent revisions of our tariff law, when the law, 

 instead of taxing simply a few articles, requires the executive to levy 

 and collect multifarious duties on so many hundreds and even thou- 

 sands of articles. 



The United States' Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries says in 

 his report for 1881: 



" In the earlier years of the American fisheries, and in the greater 

 abundance of inshore fisheries, with a comparatively slight demand 

 in consequence of the small population of the country, and the diffi- 

 culties of transporting the fish, it was quite possible to obtain, within 

 easy reach of our coast, fish enough to meet all the requirements. 



In the earlier years of the American fisheries, and in the greater abundance 

 of inshore fisheries, with a comparatively slight demand in consequence of the 

 small population of the country, and the difficulties of transporting the fish, it 



was quite possible to obtain, within easy reach of our coast, fish enough 

 369 to meet all the requirements. Now, with a population of fifty millions of 



people, the great decline of the inshore fisheries, and the ability not only 

 to transport fresh fish to any distance inland without deterioration, but with 

 also the growing demand for salted, dried, and canned fish, it is of the utmost 

 importance that every facility be furnished the fishermen in the prosecution of 

 their business. 



In the report of the commissioner for 1882 it is said : 



The work of increasing the supply of valuable fishes in the waters of the 

 United States, whether by artificial propagation or by transplantation, although 

 very successful, may be considered as yet in its infancy. It must be remembered 

 that the agencies which have tended to diminish the abundance of the fish 

 have been at work for many years, and are increasing in an enormous ratio. 

 This, taken in connection with the rapid multiplication of the population of 

 the United States, makes the work an extremely difficult one. If the general 

 conditions remained the same as they were fifty years ago, it would be a very 

 simple thing to restore the former equilibrium. 



At that time, it must ~be remembered, the methods of preservation and of 

 wholesale transfer, by means of ice, were not known, ichile the means of quick 

 transportation were very limited. Hence, a small number of fish supplied fully 

 the demand, with the exception, of course, of species that were salted down, 



