AWARD OF THE FISHERY COMMISSION. 1147 



it is more profitable for them to do so. I have sold them large quanti- 

 ties of ice to pack their bait from 10 to 12 tons per vessel each fishing 

 trip without which they could not keep their bait. They take about 

 two tons at one time, and frequently return for more ice and bait in 

 order to complete the trip. 



17. I sold yesterday two American fishermen ice to pack their bait. 

 They also buy flour, beef, oil, and molasses when they run short of stock 

 taken from home. 



18. I have been engaged in the buying and selling of fish for not less 

 than twenty years, and am acquainted with many Canadian and American 

 fi-hermen, and I have never known or heard of any Canadian fishing 

 vessel fishing in American waters, and do not know of any practical 

 advantage that would arise from doing so. 



19. If American fishermen were excluded fish would undoubtedly be 

 more plentiful. There would be more Canadian vessels employed not 

 having to compete with American fisherman, and I also believe that 

 if American fishermen were totally excluded from our markets and 

 from fishing in our waters these markets of our own would afford suffi- 

 cient inducement to carry on fishing extensively and prosperously by 

 our own people. 



20. I believe that any diminution in the mackerel trade will not be of 

 long continuance, and know of no reason why it may not be better than 

 it has ever been. 



21. American fishermen come around the southern and eastern coast 

 of Cape Breton by dozens through the Canal and Bras d'Or Lake and 

 wherever it suits them. 



22. From information I have received from masters of Canadian and 

 American vessels I have been led to believe that there have been, year 

 after year, a thousand American vessels fishing in Canadian waters, the 

 number of which I have no information may have been as great. 



JOHN L. INGRAHAM. 



Sworn at North Sydney, in the county of Cape Breton, in the Province 

 of Nova Scotia, this 18th day of July, A D. 1877, before me, 



W. H. MORSE, 

 J, P. far the County of Cape Breton. 



No. 39. 



I, JOHN J. McPHEE, of Big Pond, Township number forty five in 

 Kings County, Prince Edward Island, fisherman and fish-stage owner, 

 make oath and say : 



1. That I have been engaged in fishing or carrying on the fishing busi- 

 ness for twenty odd years, and I am carrying the business at a stage on 

 the north side of this part of this island at the present time. I have 

 fished in both boats and schooners, but chiefly in schooners, both Amer- 

 ican and island. I have fished all in this gulf, except some deep-sea 

 cod-fishing on the George's Banks, and I am acquainted with the fish- 

 ing-grounds of the gulf very well. 



2. That there are about forty boats engaged in fishing between the 

 East Point and my stage, a distance of about fifteen miles. In that dis- 

 tance there are no harbors, and the boats have to be beached. The 

 number of boats has increased a good deal since last year. The reasou 

 for the increase in the boat-fishing is that the men from here, who used 

 to fish on the American shore, found that it did not pay, and they came 

 home to fish on the island shores. 



