1618 AWARD OF THE FISHERY COMMISSION. 



tablish himself in the fresh-fish business here. Our owu witnesses the 

 witnesses lor the United States have given a fuller and more detailed 

 explanation of this change that has taken place iu the markets. It re- 

 ijuire.H no explanation to satisfy any person, with the ordinary organs of 

 taste, that one who can get fresh fish will not eat salt mackerel. Every- 

 botly'kuowH that. Cretle experto. Our witnesses tell you that fresh fish 

 is sent as far as the Mississippi, and west of the Mississippi, in as great 

 abundance as is to be found on the seaboard. It is just as easy to have 

 fresh tisli at Chicago ami Saint Louis, and at any of the cities lying on 

 the railroad lines one or two hundred miles west of the Mississippi, as 

 it is to have fresh h'sh in Boston or Philadelphia. It is only a question 

 of paying the increased price of transportation. Salt fish has to be 

 transported there also, and it costs as much to transport the salt fish as 

 the tresli h'sh. The result is, that people will not and do not eat salt fish 

 nearly as much as formerly. Then there is a great supply of lake herring 

 a kind of white-fish from the northern lakes. The quantity is so great 

 that the statistics of it are almost appalling, although they come from 

 the most authentic sources. This lake herring being sold at the same 

 price as the inferior grades of mackerel being sold often lower than the 

 cheaj>est mackerel can be afforded is taken iu preference to it. People 

 find it more agreeable. 



At the South, where once there was a large mackerel demand usually, 

 there has grown up an immense mullet business, both fresh and cured, 

 that has taken the place of salt mackerel there. And so it has come to 

 pass that there is a very limited demand in a few 1 rge hotels for that 

 kind of salt mackerel which is the best, the No. 1 fat mackerel a demand 

 that would not take up, at the usual price iu the market, $20 a barrel, 

 more than from five to ten thousand barrels all over the country, while, 

 if you go down to the poorer grades of mackerel, few will buy them 

 until they get as low as from $7 to $8 a barrel. 1 am not going over 

 the testimony of Proctor, Pew, Sylvanus Smith, and our other witnesses 

 tin this subject, because what they have said must be fresh in the minds 

 ot all of >ou. It comes to this : people will not eat the mackerel unless 

 they can buy it at a very low price. It comes into competition, not 

 with other kinds offish alone, but with every description of cheap food, 

 and its price can never be raised above the average price of other staples 

 in the market of equivalent food-value. 



If it is to be impossible to dispose of considerable quantities of these 

 i until the price is brought down to about $8 a barrel on the average, 

 whHl inducement will there be to come, at great expense, to the Gulf of 

 Lawrence, to have such results as for years past have followed from 

 The truth, gentlemen, is simply this : whether it is a 

 i-ge to you not to see United States vessels here, or whether their 

 nee here has some incidental benefit connected with it, you are 

 for years to come that they will not be here. The people 

 trait ot Canso who want to sell them supplies, will find them 

 there to buy supplies, and the unhappy fishermen who suffer so 

 ich from having them in the neighborhood of the island will be ex- 

 i all such evil consequences hereafter. Once iu two or three 

 en- appears to be a chance of a great supply here, and if 

 ere happens to be a great failure on our own coast, a few of our ves-- 

 "P in midsummer to try the experiment. But as to a large 

 states vessels fishing for mackerel in the Gulf of St. 

 no immediate prospect that such will ever be the 

 lahing tor mackerel died out in the Bay of Fun- 

 the witnesses many years ago mackerel' were ex- 



