1492 



AWARD OF THE FISHERY COMMISSION. 



gave YOU oars. You did, but they were of comparatively little value. 

 This was the objection that we took to the treaty in Nova Scotia, in 

 1854. Let me illustrate: Suppose a farmer, living on a poor farm, ex- 

 hausted by successive cropping, were to say to a neighbor having a 

 rich soil in'high cultivation, "Let us save fencing and throw our farms 

 into one." That was your proposition, and it was accepted. Now mark 

 the result that while your vessels have swarmed in our waters for the 

 last nine years, carrying off enormous values every year, we have never 

 sent a vessel south during all that time, or caught a single cargo of fish 

 on the coast or in the bays of the United States. 



No. 33. 



ROYAL ALFRED, AT BERMUDA, 



November 18, 1869. 



SIR : I beg to inclose, for the information of the lords commission- 

 ers of the Admiralty, the fishery reports from the officers commanding 

 the Dart, Mullet, and Minstrel, which have been employed during the 

 past season in the protection of the fisheries on the coast of New Bruns- 

 wick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward, and Cape Breton Islands. 



"2. The Royalist was dispatched also on this duty, but was recalled 

 early in the season, and sent to re-enforce the squadron at the Bahamas, 

 as reported at the time by my predecessor. The others were also with- 

 drawn for some three or four weeks at the end of August and beginning 

 of September, to attend upon his Royal Highness Prince Arthur, in his 

 visit to the different ports of the Dominion. 



3. The steamer Druid, belonging to the Dominion, has been also occa- 

 sionally employed on the fisheries on the coast of Cape Breton Island, 

 but as she has had to visit periodically the light-houses around Nova 

 Scotia and New Brunswick, very little of her time could be devoted to 

 the fisheries. 



4. From the periodical reports of the officers I have extracted the 

 following account of vessels boarded, distinguishing those which had 

 taken out licenses from the Dominion Government, authorizing them to 

 fish within three miles of the shore. 



Dart. 



Mullet. 1 Minstrel ', Total. 



5. It thm-m appears that out of 162 vessels boarded within the Hin- 

 ts, only 12, or about 7 per cent., had licensed. It is also plain why this 

 \\ hen established the charge was fixed at half a dollar per ton, 

 1 a large proportion of vessels took out licenses the first year. Some, 

 nveyr, dirt not do so, and the fishermen soon discovered that there 

 t> risk of interference or capture, as so few cruisers were em- 

 loyed, and no other efficacious measures were adopted to prevent in- 

 fraction i ot the treaty by ihose not licensed. The fee was then raised 

 ? dollar per ton, and has this year been further raised to two dol- 

 thout any increase of vigilance, and the natural result has 

 r few licenses have been taken out, and those in fact only 



