FISHERIES OF THE PROVINCE OF QUEBEC 129 



ate Bill. Your committee also report the draught of a Bill 

 for this purpose, prepared by their directions. 



"The diminution which the Revenues of the Province 

 might experience, by adopting these measures which your 

 committee think it their duty to recommend, would be trifling 

 in amount, and, contrasted with the beneficial results it 

 must produce, your committee are of opinion that it is 

 scarcely possible to devise means by which an equal sum 

 could be employed to better purpose. The Legislature owe 

 it to the hardy and enterprising men engaged in our fisher- 

 ies, and whose toil and industry are intimately connected 

 with the commercial prosperity of the Province, to afford 

 every succour, however small, that may tend to their comfort 

 and encouragement. To know even that they are objects of 

 the solicitude of the Legislature, must in itself have a tendency 

 to promote the fisheries, by stimulating the perseverance and 

 cheering the hopes of that useful class of men. 



"Your committee also recommend to the attention of the 

 House the great and serious inconvenience felt by the coast- 

 ing trade, in the grievous charges exacted at the Custom House 

 on vessels sailing from Quebec for that purpose, as appears 

 by the evidence offered to your committee by merchants of 

 respectability of Quebec, and which appear to your com- 

 mittee to be such as almost to amount to a prohibition to 

 navigate small craft, or vessels of the size and tonnage in 

 which the coasting trade is, and only can be, conveniently 

 carried on. This your committee are of opinion might be 

 remedied by an Address to His Excellency the Governor in 

 Chief, requesting that His Excellency will be graciously 

 pleased to take such measures as may remove the grievance 

 complained of. 



The whole, nevertheless, respectfully submitted. 



J. T. TASCHEEEAU, 



Chairman." 



