DESPATCHES, EEPOETS, CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. 311 



Banks and use salt bait, and whatever else they can get there. Saint 

 Pierre and Miquelon are free ports; commercial intercourse is per- 

 mitted there ; bait can be bought there ; and, as the British witnesses 

 have told us, the traffic for bait between Newfoundland and the 

 French Islands is so great, and such a full supply of bait is brought 

 to the French Islands, more than there is a demand for, that it is 

 sometimes thrown overboard in quantities that almost fill up the 

 harbor. That was the statement of one of the witnesses. I do not 

 think, therefore, that I need spend more time, either upon the cod- 

 fishery, or the question of buying bait or procuring bait for cod-fishing. 

 ******* 



Is there any prospect whatever that the mackerel fishery for 

 American vessels in the Gulf of St. Lawrence will ever become pros- 

 perous? In order that it should do so, there must concur three 

 things, of no one of which is there any present probability. In the 

 first place, there must be much poorer fishing off the coasts of the 

 United States than usual, for as things have been there for some years 

 past, until the present year, the fishing for mackerel was so much 

 more profitable than it had ever been in the Gulf of St. Lawrence 

 that there was no temptation for our vessels to desert our own shores ; 

 and off the shores of the United States seining can be pursued, which 

 never has been successfully followed in the gulf. Seining mackerel 

 is about the only really profitable mode of taking the fish, as a busi- 

 ness out of which money can be made to any considerable amount. 

 The days for hook-and-line fishing have passed away, and seining is 

 the method by which the fish must be taken if money is to be made. 

 That has never yet been done, and is not likely to be done, in the gulf. 

 The bottom is too rough; the water is too shallow. The expedient 

 that we were told at the beginning of the hearing had been adopted 

 turns out to be impracticable, for shallow seines alarm and frighten 

 away the fish. The seines are not made shallow to accommodate 

 themselves to the waters of the gulf. Year by year they are made 

 longer and deeper, that a school of fish may be more successfully 

 enveloped by them. Then there must also be much better fishing in 

 the gulf than has existed for several years past. ^ It has been going 

 down in value every year since the treaty went into effect. It has 

 got down to an average by the Port Mulgrave returns (I mean by 

 the portion of the returns which we have) of 125 barrels a vessel this 

 year, and, according to the verbal statement of the collector of Port 

 Mulgrave, 108 barrels is quite up to the average. If any one takes 

 the trouble to go through the returns we have put into the case and 

 analyze them, it will appear that 108 barrels is quite as large as the 

 average this year. Some vessels have come out of the gulf 

 187 with nothing at all, and some with hardly anything at all. In 

 the next place, in order to induce American vessels to go for 

 mackerel to the Gulf of St. Lawrence in any considerable numbers, 

 mackerel must have an active market at remunerative prices. There 

 must be a different state of things in the United States in that respect 

 from what has existed for many years past, for, by all accounts, the 

 demand has been declining and the consumption has been diminishing 



for ten years past. 



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