1406 AWARD OF THE FISHERY COMMISSION. 



over bait to take the fish away from inshore. I have often seen the 

 Americans running into Xova Scotian vessels, and being so many, we 

 were often afraid of them. 



5. The Americans fit out their vessels to take from three to eight 

 hundred barrels per vessel, and take on an average of from three hun- 

 dred to four hundred barrels to each vessel on each trip, and make 

 about three trips. Some years the Americans do better than this and 

 some not so well. Our vessels are not so large as the Americans, and I 

 have taken three hundred barrels of mackerel in one trip. About four 

 years ago I took codfish in the Bay of Chaleur, and took in my vessel 

 eight hundred and twenty five quintals, mostly all inshore. 



6. Tbe Americans carry on the fishing by trawling, and I think this 

 kind of fishing should not be allowed. 



7. The Americans fished inshore when the fishery was protected by 

 the cutters, and used to run off shore when the cutters were around, and 

 used to come in when they disappeared. It would not pay the Ameri- 

 cans to fish unless they could catch fish inshore. 



8. The Americans get bait here year after year, and this spring have 

 got bait at Mosher's Island, in this harbor, and have, during the past 

 five or six years, got ice in this harbor in which to pack their bait. 



MARTIN WENTZEL. 



Sworn to at Lower LaHave, in the county of Lunenburg, this 7th 

 dav of August, A. D. 1877, before me. 



JAMES H. WENTZEL. J. P. 



Xo. 271. 



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



of Washington. 



I, WILLIAM B. CHRISTIAN, of Prospect, in the county of Halifax, and 

 Province of Xova Scotia, at present of the city of Halifax, make oath 

 and say as follows : 



I keep a general store and do a general mercantile business at Pros- 

 pect, supplying our fishermen and others with goods and supplies. 



I also supply ice and bait to American cod and halibut fishermen, and 

 advertise in the Gloucester Advertiser to that effect. 



Several others at Prospect tried this last business, but could not do it 

 with success. 



Another person at Prospect doing that business to the extent that I 

 do it would render the thing of little or no profit or advantage. 



I purchase goods in Boston every year, personally visting that city ; 

 but the trade of the American fishermen with me, except for bait and 

 ice, is very trifling. When in Boston, I usually each year go on to 

 Gloucester to settle up with those who buy ice and bait, and arrange for 

 further business in those things, and I am thus in frequent communica- 

 tion with American capitalists, whose vessels fish in our water. 



I am aware that it would be useless for the Americans to attempt to 

 carry on the cod or halibut fishery in our waters without the liberty now 

 enjoyed since the Washington Treaty, of procuring ice and fresh bait on 

 our shores. 



This year an American halibut fishing vessel came into Prospect, the 

 William Thompson, a new vessel, belonging to the w^ll-known firm of 

 Cunningham & Thompson, of Gloucester, and had sixty-five thousand 

 1 -omuls of halibut on board, which required immediately four or five 



