ARGUMENT OF SIR JAMES WINTER. 937 



it has remained on the Statute Book up to this day. If it appears to 

 be discriminating, and unfair or prejudicial in any way against the 

 Americans, there is, as far as I am aware, no reason for continuing 

 it against them, if it is necessary to remove it in order to enable them 

 to get the supply of bait-fish they require. 



If, after this enquiry, this or any other provision is found to oper- 

 ate harshly or injuriously or unfairly toward the American fishermen 

 there has never been any refusal or any objection to entertaining their 

 objections down to the present moment, and neither is there now. 

 This is a discrimination which is really only an apparent one a the- 

 oretical one. It never assumed any practical shape, and never has 

 taken any shape until now; and now it possesses no real, substantial 

 value, because no American fisherman at the present time wants to 

 come down and haul herring in a seine for bait. It would be an 

 absurd and a foolish business. That is the explanation, and the only 

 explanation that I can give that an American or a French or any 

 other foreign vessel coming from another country for bait would not 

 bring down a seine a large, cumbersome, heavy article like that 

 for the purpose of hauling bait. 



JUDGE GRAY: But they could not purchase it, could they, during 

 the winter months? They could not purchase bait herring, could 

 they ? 



SIR JAMES WINTER : Yes. 



JUDGE GRAY: I thought there was a close season in the winter 

 against taking herring? 



SIR JAMES WINTER : No. They can get all they want for bait. All 

 that is required in the winter can be got in the small nets, and that 

 is how the business has been carried on. And that has been going 

 on in the Bay of Islands particularly. The business has grown up 

 a very large business has grown up and it has extended, and that 

 is what this whole case has arisen out of that not only was there a 

 sufficient herring catch in the winter months for bait, but it has 

 grown into a commercial business, and an important business the 

 catching of herring for exportation for consumption, and not with 

 seines, but the catching with nets. 



THE PRESIDENT: The quantity of herring which was necessary for 

 bait purposes could be caught in nets? 



SIR JAMES WINTER: Yes. 



561 THE PRESIDENT: And only such large quantities as are nec- 



essary for exportation makes necessary the employment of 

 seines? 



SIR JAMES WINTER: No, Sir; we do not go so far even as that, 

 because, as I have said, there has been a profitable business in the 

 catching of herring for exportation for food carried on in recent 

 years on the west coast, in the Bay of Islands, by means of nets 

 only an additional reason for not using seines; that is, that even 



