1274 AWARD OF THE FISHERY COMMISSION. 



Sworn to at Port Mouton, in the county of Queen's, this 17th day of 

 August, A. D. 1877. before me. 



S. T. N. SELLON, J. P. 



No. 151. 



In the matter of the Fisheries Commission at Halifax, under the Treaty 



of Washington. 



I, GEORGE McLEOD, of Brooklyn, in the county of Queen's, master 

 mariner, make oath and say as follows : 



1. I have been engaged and connected with the fisheries for the past 

 fifty years, and have a vessel now engaged in fishing on the Labrador 

 coast of seventy-two tons register, and manned by seventeen hands. 



2. Eight years ago I was on the Labrador coast with two of my own 

 vessels, each of them was eighty-four tons, and carried seventeen hands 

 each, and in three months we brought home sixteen hundred quintals 

 of codfish. We considered that year a very poor one ; before that they 

 had brought home eleven hundred apiece. We caught most of these 

 fish on the Canadian coast of the Labrador. We took these fish within 

 three miles of the shore. When there I saw several American vessels 

 taking fish and bait, the same as we were. They fished inshore within 

 three miles, in not more than six fathoms of water. 



3. About twenty years ago, when fishing on the Labrador coast, I saw 

 upwards of forty American vessels of a large class on the Canadian part 

 of Labrabor, at Old Fort Islands, Dog Islands, Bon Experience, Five 

 League ; at these places the Americans took codfish with hook and line, 

 all inshore, within a mile of the shore. At Salmon River I have seen 

 five American sail taking codfish by seining on the shore. 



4. The Americans get bait and ice in this harbor, and there are five 

 American vessels here to-day for bait and ice, and it has been the prac- 

 tice of the Americans for the past thirty years to come here for bait, 

 and this I know well, for I have often supplied them with bait. I have 

 seen an American vessel six years ago throw her seine in this harbor 

 on a Sunday for mackerel, and every year for the past thirty they set 

 their nets in this harbor for bait when they had the right to do so, and 

 when they had not the right. When they had not the right, the 

 Americans were more sly, and often set their nets about dark, and took 

 them up early in the morning. Since 1871 they have set them more 

 freely, and with less trouble. 



5. The Americans must get their bait on this coast, and they can get 

 this bait nowhere else but on the Nova Scotian and other parts of the 

 Canadian coast. This the Americans themselves say is so, and without 

 this bait and ice they cannot carry on the Bank fishing. They get a 

 supply of ice and bait, and go out and fish, then return for a fresh 

 supply. 



6. So many vessels running here for bait and ice interferes with the 

 supply for our bankers. 



7. When the Americans get bait and ice in this harbor, they run out 

 about nine miles and fish from nine to twenty miles off this harbor, and 

 fish from Seal Island to the Western Bank; and this year the coast 

 along has been lined with them. 



8. They carry on the cod-fishery on the inside Bank, along the coast of 

 Nova Scotia, by trawling, which I consider a most injurious method of 

 taking fish, as the mother fish are destroyed, and unless stopped will 



