AWARD OF THE FISHERY COMMISSION. 1109 



fishermen and captains say they would not come down if kept away 

 from the shore fishing; our captain insisted on getting a license be- 

 fore he would fish, and he and the crew paid for it; if there were 

 enough cutters about, the Americans would keep away; ten or twenty 

 small vessels fitted out as cutters would keep them off; schooners would 

 be best for cutters. 



9. By fishing near the shore the Americans do a great deal of harm 

 to the mackerel, they chuck out so much bait. They have the very best 

 of bait, and can carry the mackerel off shore with them, as the mack- 

 erel follow the bait. They " lee-bow " the boats and prevent their catch- 

 ing fish. The Americans often get right in among the boats fishing and 

 spoil their chances of a catch. 



10. Fishermen in boats look upon the arrival of the American fleet 

 as the ruin of the good fishing, and I know it to be the fact. Their 

 coming is thus a very great loss and injury to boat fishermen. The 

 boats lie at anchor and the schooners drift down upon them, when the 

 former have to get out of the way. 



11. The mackerel fishing begins as a rule about the twenty-fifth of 

 June and lasts till about the end of October. 



12. The right of transshipment is a very great advantage to the 

 Americans. They are thus enabled to take advantage of the markets. 

 When we transshipped the three hundred barrels at Oharlottetown we 

 got twenty four dollars and fifty cents American currency a barrel for 

 them ; had we been obliged to take them down ourselves we would have 

 got to the market more than a week later with the fish than they ar- 

 rived by transshipment, and then the price would have been seventeen 

 dollars American money a barrel, so that by the transshipment of those 

 three hundred barrels we saved exactly two thousand two hundred and 

 fifty dollars American money, or seven dollars and a half a barrel, be- 

 sides being able to remain on the fishing grounds. There were a num- 

 ber of other Americans at the same time who transshipped at the same 

 time and gained in the same way. The right of transshipment also 

 enables them to refit and save a great deal of time during the fishing 

 season. 



13. The mackerel come in here in the beginning of the season from 

 the southward and eastward, and work northwardly and westwardly 

 till about the middle of August, and then work back, striking this island 

 both ways. The Americans know all about this and follow the fish. 

 They know the course of the fish so well that they occasionally lay in 

 wait to meet the schools of mackerel. I have known them go into 

 Georgetown and wait in this way. 



14. The Americans seine the fish and do a great deal of harm. I have 

 known them off the Nail Pond shore, while seining for mackerel, strike 

 upon a school of herring and take about five hundred barrels, which 

 they threw away and the herring were destroyed. 



WILLIAM CHAMPION. 



Sworn to at Alberton, in Prince County, Prince Edward Island, this 

 26th day of June. A. D. 1877. before me. ' 



JOSEPH MACGILVRAY, 

 Justice of the Peace for Prince County, Prince Edward Island. 



