1606 NOBTH ATLANTIC COAST FISHERIES ARBITRATION. 



to a Canadian document. He tells of the petitions to Congress from 

 United States fishermen, among others delegations of fishermen from 

 Gloucester, Massachusetts; and they give figures which are certainly 

 calculated to impress the intellect and the imagination. He says of 

 some of the methods they had of catching fish by purse seines and 

 so on, they would sometimes destroy as many fish as would fill a 

 hundred barrels in order to get, I think he says in one case, only one 

 barrel. They were destroying fish out of all proportion to those 

 which they caught, and he says in one place: "Half the catch some- 

 times are killed before spawning." So that the possibility of multi- 

 plication is destroyed by catching the fish at a time when by every 

 law they ought to be left alone. 



THE PRESIDENT: Please, Mr. Attorney-General, is not the diver- 

 gence of opinion between Professor Huxley and Professor Baird 

 perhaps partially to be explained from some difference in their point 

 of view ? Professor Huxley views the case more from the zoological 

 and scientific point, whereas Professor Baird looks at it more from 

 the practical and economic standpoint. It may be that in conse- 

 quence of the enormous powers of propagation of fish the number of 

 fish in the whole of the oceans of the earth is not diminished, whereas 

 the number is diminished on certain coasts. 



SIR W. ROBSON : I am much obliged, Sir. That had not occurred 

 to me, but I have no doubt that accounts for the difference of opinion 

 and the difference of statement of the two. They are each of them 

 looking at it from different points of view. Professor Huxley is 

 thinking rather, as the learned President has said, from the zoological 

 point of view. He says that, at all events, there is no fear that 

 the fish, as species will cease to exist. They may be driven away 

 where it may be difficult to find them, but they will still exist and 

 they will exist somewhere in large numbers. AVhereas Mr. Baird is 

 dealing with the question of the fish there, as present in that par- 

 ticular habitat 



Well now, this establishes for the purpose of my argument, what 

 I have called the vital necessity of regulation for the preservation of 

 the fish in that fishery. 



I need not dwell, I think, also upon the equal necessity of regula- 

 tions for the purpose of observing order. That is so apparent, I do 

 not need to dwell upon it at all. There is where the question of 

 sovereignty comes in with such force. How can you divide sover- 

 eignty? How can you have, with any kind of security to a com- 

 munity a dual sovereignty at all ? We have had several examples of 

 them in history, but they have not lasted long. How can you have 

 a dual sovereignty with regard to the staple industry of a country 

 because here we are dealing with a staple industry of this little 

 island? Sir Eobert Bond, with a fine fervour of patriotism talks of 



