2044 NORTH ATLANTIC COAST FISHERIES ARBITRATION. 



Then there is the same sort of statute in New Hampshire, 1687. 

 Here is the preamble : 



" Whereas much Damage hath been sustained and the Credit of the 

 fishing Trade is greatly impaired by the bad making of fish, and dis- 

 orderly acting of fishermen," etc. 



and the Act goes on to provide for the inspecting of catches and the 

 curing of all fish. Then that has the same words, " No mackerel to 

 be caught except for spending while fresh before 1st July ; no mack- 

 erel to be caught with seines." And so that was with the same 

 purpose. 



Then there is a statute, a series of them, of New Plymouth, which 

 is now part of Massachusetts, one of the original colonies that entered 

 into the constitution of the Colony of Massachusetts. The statutes 

 of 1668, 1670, 1672, 1677, are statutes regulating fishing, only by 

 either excluding outsiders from fishing, or letting them in to fish. 



Then there is a statute, or two successive statutes in New York, 

 relating to fishing in the County of Suffolk. 



Now those are fish regulations. They are shore regulations of the 

 most obnoxious kind. They are designed to prevent any market fish- 

 ing at all ; anybody coming from outside to interfere with the natives 



in taking fish. 



1237 Perhaps it is a little clearer to me than it would be to some 

 other readers, because I think I have fished over every bay, 

 and every cove, and creek, and inlet in Suffolk County. It is the east 

 end of Long Island, a place by itself, which, in those days, before 

 there was any railroad, was almost self-governing under the sov- 

 ereignty of the State of New York. And, they got the Legislature 

 of New York to pass a law which would keep their fishing for them- 

 selves; the natives on the shore practically barred everybody else out. 

 No person to draw any seine or net of any length, or set any seine 

 or net more than 6 fathoms long, with meshes not less than 3 inches 

 square, from the 15th November to the 15th April, in the bays, rivers, 

 or creeks of the County of Suffolk. 



Now, the observation I have to make about that is this: If these 

 negotiators had ever heard of these little local regulations down at 

 the east end of Long Island, far to the south, they would have under- 

 taken not to permit that kind of regulation, but to prevent it. But, 

 there was no general system of fish regulation of any kind. 



Then there are, over on p. 13 of the Memorandum, three statutes 

 cited, one of New Jersey in 1826, that is eight years after the treaty 

 of 1818, which limited fishing to the citizens of New Jersey; one of 

 Delaware in 1871, fifty odd years after the treaty, and I do not 

 think we need trouble about that; and one of Maryland in 1896, 

 nearly eighty years after the treaty. 



Those are all of the American statutes. 



