AWARD OF THE FISHER V COMMISSION. 1615 



donald, of East Point, says that lie lias not seen more than thirty sail 

 this year at one time together; that last year he saw as many as a dozen 

 and perhaps fifteen or twenty sail at a time. The number has dimin- 

 ished very much, he says, for the last five or six years, until this year. 



Now, gentlemen, this is the record of the five years during which 

 United States fishermen, under the provisions of the Treaty of Wash- 

 ington, have derived whatever advantage* they could obtain from the 

 inshore fisheries. I have heard the suggestion made that it would have 

 been better if this Commission had met in 1872, because there might 

 have then been evidence introduced with reference to the whole twelve 

 years of the Treaty of Washington ; and 1 have even heard it said that 

 it would have been fair to estimate the value of the privilege for the 

 twelve years according to the appearance at that time. That is to say, 

 that it would have been fairer to estimate by conjecture than by proof, 

 by anticipation than by actual results. It seems to me. on the contrary, 

 gentlemen, that the fairer way would have been either to have the value 

 of this privilege reckoned up at the end of each fishing year, when it 

 could be seen what had actually been done, or to have postponed the 

 determination of the question until the experience of the whole twelve 

 years, as matter of evidence, could be laid before the Commission. 



What shall we say of the prospects of the ensuing seven years ! What 

 reason is there to believe that the business will suddenly be revolu- 

 tionized ; that there will be a return to the extraordinary prosperity, 

 the great number of fish, and the large catches that are said to have 

 been drawn from the gulf twenty-five, twenty, fifteen years ago? We 

 were told that the time for the revolution had come already when we 

 met here, but the result proves that the present season has been one of 

 the worst for our fishermen. What chance can you see that a state of 

 things will ensue that will make the privilege any more valuable for the 

 seven years to come than it has been for the five years already passed f 

 Have you any right to assume that it is to be better without evidence! 

 Have you any right, when you are obliged to judge of the future by the 

 past, to go back to a remote past, instead of taking the experience of 

 recent years? Would it be just for you to do so? This Commission, 

 of course, does not sit here to be generous with the money of the Gov- 

 ernment of the United States, but simply to value in money what the 

 citizens of the United States have under the treaty received, and are 

 proved to be about to receive. It is, therefore, to be a matter of proof, 

 of just such proof as you would require if you were assessing a charge 

 upon each fishing- vessel, either as it entered the gulf or as it returned 

 with its mackerel. 



We think there have been, heretofore, quite good standards by which 

 to estimate the values of the inshore fisheries. For four years a system 

 of licenses was enforced. In the year 186G the license-fee charged was 

 only fifty cents a ton, except at Prince Edward Island, where it seems 

 to have been sixty cents a ton. In 1867 it was raised to a dollar a ton, 

 and $1.20 at Prince Edward Island. In 1868 it was two dollars a ton, 

 and $2.40 at Prince Edward Island. The reason for the additional price 

 on the island I do not know, but it is not, perhaps, of much Qonsequeuce. 

 Our fishermen told you that the motive that induced them to take out 

 these licenses was twofold. In the first place, they desired to be free 

 from danger of molestation. In the next place they did not desire, when 

 there was an opportunity to catch fish within three miles of the shore, 

 to be debarred from doing so; and if the license-fee had remained at 

 the moderate price originally charged no doubt all of our vessels would 

 have continued to pay the license as they did the first year. Three hun- 



