ARGUMENT OF ELIHU ROOT. 2043 



suggested to the negotiators the fact that fishing was a thing appro- 

 priate and proper to be regulated; a suggestion which we are not 

 disposed materially to controvert ; indeed, I intend hereafter to show 

 that they did have specifically in mind the subject of regulation, and 

 that they acted specifically upon it, and that there was a perfectly 

 distinct understanding with regard to regulation. Nevertheless, I 

 will make some remarks upon these American Statutes. 



They did not contain any general scheme of regulation or suggest 

 any general scheme of regulation. The first referred to are the Stat- 

 utes of Massachusetts and New Hampshire. They appear upon p. 4 

 of the British Memorandum. And, they constitute a series of stat- 

 utes which upon examination are designed to control the trade in 

 fish, rather than the taking of fish. 



There was one in 1668 that provided that no cod-fish should be 

 killed or dried for sale in December or January; no mackerel to be 

 caught except for spending while fresh before the 1st June. This 

 was amended in 1692, or rather re-enacted in 1692, and in that form 

 it has a preamble which is: 



" Upon consideration of great damage and scandal that hath hap- 

 pened upon the account of pickled fish, although afterwards closed 

 and hardly discoverable, to the great loss of money, and also the ill- 

 reputation on this province and the fishery of it." 



" No mackerel to be caught while fresh before first of July." 



And so on. 



That is to say, they were endeavouring to keep up the standard of 

 this great article of commerce by preventing fish being taken at such 

 time that when it was put up or preserved to be kept and dealt with 

 as an article of commerce it would be a bad article, and would de- 

 stroy the reputation of the commercial article of the country. 



JUDGE GRAY : I did not quite understand one word. The object was 

 to prevent the fish after being taken from being prepared for sale ? 



SENATOR ROOT: The object was to prevent fish from being taken at 

 such a time that it would not be a prime article of commerce. It was 

 to prevent its being taken in the spawning season, because the fish 

 is not a good article then. It was a kind of pure food Act rather than 

 a fishery regulation. 



Massachusetts was engaged in trade, and her great stock-in-trade 

 was fish. The fish were caught and they were cured, dried, salted, 

 pickled, put up in such form that they became an article of commerce. 



Xow, if the fish were taken when they were spawning they were a 

 bad article of commerce, and when they were sold they destroyed the 

 reputation of the pickled fish of Massachusetts: and. for the preser- 

 vation of that reputation, and keeping up the standard of this great 

 article of commerce, these statutes were passed. 



