1154 AWARD OF THE FISHERY COMMISSION. 



here as before, becanse, owing to the large quantities of fish canght two 

 years ago, the price of mackerel is not now as high as formerly. Two 

 years ago, with three boats. I shipped ODC thousand barrels of mackerel. 



JOHN G. McNEILL. 



Sworn to at North Rnstico, in Queen's County, in Prince Edward 

 Island, this 10th day of Julv, A. D. 1877, before me. 



WM. 8. MCNEIL, 



J. P. Queen's County. 

 No. 43. 



I, GEOKGE McKENZiE, of French Kiver, in New London, in Queen's 

 County, Prince Edward Island, master mariner, make oath and say : 



1. That I have been engaged in fishing for about forty years, in 

 schooners nearly altogether ; I have fished at the Labrador for codfish 

 and herring, and in the gulf cod and mackerel fishing, and I am well 

 acquainted with all the fishing grounds from Sandwich Bay, in Labra- 

 dor, all up the gulf to Anticosti. I have fished two years in Auticosti. 



2. That there is a very large number of boats fishing off this harbor 

 and the coast in this locality, and their number is increasing very fast; 

 in this harbor they have doubled in number during the last year, and 

 the boats are a hundred per cent, better now than they were; they are 

 better rigged, better shaped, of better material, larger, and better in 

 every respect than they were. The reasons for the increase in the boat 

 fishing now is that people, finding it pays, are going more and more into 

 it, and young men are now going in for fishing instead of leaving the 

 island ; young men do not care about going to sea as much as for fish- 

 ing, as they can get money easier in the latter way. There is also a 

 considerable surplus population springing up now, which find employ- 

 ment in fishing, which they could not get in any other way; men see 

 there is an opening here for them in the fishing business, and they would 

 sooner go into it than go away. 



3. The boats take, on an average, crews of four men each, besides the 

 men employed about the stages, who would be at the rate of about four 

 men to six boats; this is besides the men who make the barrels, and 

 others to whom employment is given preparing outfit and material for 

 the boats; during the fishing season it would take twenty men, clear of 

 the stages and the crews, to keep six boats going. Last year I paid one 

 thousand and sixty dollars for the barrels used by me for my six boats, 

 and which barrels were all made and supplied by men having nothing 

 to do with the boats or stages. 



4. That the average cateh of mackerel for the boats, taking one with 

 another, is not less than one hundred barrels. This I know from the 

 number of barrels caught by the different boats here, as shown by the 

 actual figures taken as the boats landed the fish. 



5. That all these mackerel are caught right along the shore; none 

 farther out than three miles from shore, and the greater part within one 

 mile of the line of the shore. 



G. That the boat fishing here puts a great deal of money in circula- 

 tion in the country, as the moment the fish are shipped the fishermen or 

 shippers can draw for the money, and the banks cash their drafts. This 

 keeps up a good circulation of cash in the country, and does a lot of good 

 in that way. 



7. Until the last two years there have been fleets of 500 sail of Ameri- 

 can fishermen fishing in the gulf. The reason they have not been so 



