28 



Reorganization of 

 officers necessary 

 owing to vast area 

 to patrol. 



Central Inspector's 

 office necessary 

 whence licenses 

 should issue. 



Weekly returns of 

 licenses to Ottawa. 



Better paid and 



>etter pa 

 fewer offi 

 desirable. 



Criticism of 

 present staff 



Existing defects of 

 local officers. 



addition to the serious laxity arising- from the non-issue of the 

 licenses, there is an absolute necessity for the reorganization or for 

 the modification of the official fishery staff in the province if any 

 effective improvement in the observance and enforcement of the law 

 is to be accomplished. 



Few people are able. to realize the vast extent of the area which 

 the officers have to cover, and the immense \valo is which should be 

 regularly patrolled if proper supervision is to be exercised. The scale 

 011 which the fishing operations is carried on, both in winter and 

 summer, is most extensive, and it would appear that for interests 

 so vast as the fisheries of Manitoba and Keewatin, there should be a 

 division of labour and that one officer should not have to .cover such 

 an immense geographical area as the present conditions require. 

 There should be some central inspector's office in the province, estab- 

 lished where the principal officer could be consulted by parties on 

 fishery business. He should have authority to issue licenses and 

 save the serious delay which at present is so great an obstacle to the 

 effective working out of the government's policy of protection and 

 preservation of fish. He should make weekly returns to the depart- 

 ment of the licenses issued and remit the fees collected. For the 

 leasons which are apparent, we do not favour the present system of 

 a numerous staff of poorly paid fishery overseers, and a still more 

 inadequately paid staff of fishery guardians. The whole territory 

 should be under the supervision of six or eight active and properly 

 paid fishery overseers, who would have their patrols specified by the 

 principal officer or district inspector, and who would report regu- 

 larly to him as to the way in which the fishery regulations are being 

 observed, and to have the duty of distributing to the fishermen their 

 jkhery licenses before they actually commence to fish. We consider 

 it important that, before any fisherman puts his nets in the water, 

 he should have in his possession his license, which is his authority 

 to carry on fishing operations. The present system is not satisfac- 

 tory, and there is a widespread feeling in the province that some 

 change must be made in the method of official supervision. If the 

 inspector were located in Winnipeg, he would be more central and 

 more accessible for the province generally than at Selkirk; and the 

 overseers, at present, are neither well placed nor have sufficient 

 salary to justify their active efficiency. Moreover, many of the 

 fishery officers have no aptitude for effective patrol duties, while the 

 poorly paid fishery guardians, in many cases, do practically no duty 

 at all, some of them being apparently, not acquainted with the regu- 

 lations, and, of course, make no attempt to enforce them, often for 

 the reason that they are ignorant of what the law is, but more fre- 

 quently because most of them are relatives or friends of the local 

 fishermen, and some of them actually engage themselves in the fish- 

 ing operations. It is hardly to be expected that a local resident with 

 poor pay, will run the risk of the displeasure of his friends and 

 neighbours, and possibly even suffer at their hands, if he attempts 

 to enforce the law, and the necessity is plain, for the patrol duties 

 to be performed by men who are not locally resident, but who have 

 the qualifications to perform their duty as active officers, and a salary 

 sufficient to enable them to devote themselves solely to their fishery 

 officer's work. We are convinced that, by abolishing the present 

 staff of poorly paid officers, and replacing them by a smaller number 

 of properly paid officials, the work would be done far more effectivley 

 and without any very material increase in cost. 



