FISHERIES OF THE PROVINCE OF QUEBEC 163 



"The enactment of laws will avail nothing unless they 

 provide such superintendence as will be sufficient to carry 

 them into effect. 



"For the preservation of our fisheries of every kind, it 

 is desirable that such superintendence should be established 

 and organized in such a manner as to ensure the law being 

 carried into effect in all parts of the Province where there 

 are fisheries of any considerable value. Our cod, mackerel 

 and herring fisheries as well as our salmon fisheries require 

 such supervision for the preservation of the fish and the 

 checking of unlawful fishing. 



"Our salmon fisheries have become so reduced on some 

 of our rivers from the scarcity of the fish as to render it 

 advisable to adopt the system of artificial fish-breeding as a 

 means of restoring them to their former value. As the ap- 

 plication of this system is simple and has been attended with 

 success in European countries, it might, under the super- 

 intendence proposed, be carried out with equal success in 

 our rivers. 



' ' To assist in forming an idea of the value of the fisheries 

 of the coasts of Canada on the St. Lawrence and Gulf, I 

 would remark that during the summer season six or seven 

 hundred American schooners resort to our coast on the Gulf 

 to carry on various fisheries, especially that of mackerel. 

 These schooners are about eighty tons average burthen (car- 

 rying ten men), and are worth from six to seven thousand 

 dollars each. 



"Besides these, from three to four hundred schooners 

 from Nova Scotia and New Brunswick resort to the Mag- 

 dalen Islands and the Canadian coast of Labrador, chiefly to 

 carry on herring and cod fishing. 



"To these may be added the six hundred resident seal 

 fishers on the coast of Labrador who take about seven thou- 

 sand seals annually. 



"The value of the fisheries prosecuted on our coast is 

 probably about $400,000 annually." 



It was during the session of Parliament at which the 



