1G26 AWARD OF THE FISHERY COMMISSION. 



eettinc it It i* not. then, the French manufacturer irfto has profited by the removal of duties ; 

 it i thf irnb alone." Tims the interest of the consumer, aliout which so much noise 

 in made far from being the principal element in the question, only plays a secondary 

 purt. bince the mluctiou in the tariff only profits him in a small measure. 



Now, we are in a condition to understand precisely the meaning of 

 what one of our witnesses said, Mr. Pew, that the price of mackerel to 

 Iho man who bought one mackerel at a time and ate it had not changed 

 lor ten years; that it was a very small purchase; that the grocer who 

 sold it to him would not lessen the price it mackerel went down, and 

 would not raise the price if mackerel went up; that it kept to him uni- 

 form ; so that, after all, the question has been a question where the 

 greater or less profit accrued to parties who handled the mackerel. 



If ever there was a case where it was impossible to transfer a duty 

 once paid by a man who catches fish and brings it to market so that its 

 incidence would fall on the consumer, it is the one we are dealing with. 

 Why sot You cannot raise the price of mackerel very much, because 

 its consumption stops when you get above $8 or $10, at the highest, a 

 barn-1. People will not eat it in larger quantities unless they are in- 

 duced to do it because it is the cheapest procurable food. That is one 

 reason why the duty cannot be put on to the price. There is another 

 reason why it cannot be added to the price a perfectly conclusive one; 

 and that is that not more than one fourth or a less part of the supply 

 (it has been assumed iu the question as one-fourth) is imported and sub- 

 ject to the duty. I do not care what fraction it is, whether one-third, 

 one-fourth, or one-fifth, not more than a small fraction of the mackerel 

 that is in the markets of the United States at any time comes from the 

 provinces; and in order to get the price up to a point that will reim- 

 burse the provincial fisherman who has paid a duty you must raise the 

 price of all the mackerel in the market, must you not ? That is per- 

 fectly plain. If there are between three and four hundred thousand 

 barrels of mackerel in the United States, and thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, 

 seventy, eighty, or a hundred thousand of them are taxed $2 a bar- 

 rel, do you think it is going to be possible to raise, by the tax on the 

 provincial catch, the price ot the whole production in the market ? If that 

 could be done it might come out of the consumer, and then it would be 

 a benefit to our fishermen and an injury in the end to our consumers. 

 But it cannot be done. The price cannot be raised. The fraction is 

 not larjji* enough to produce any perceptible influences upon it. So the 

 result has always been, and they know that it was so before and must be 

 HO again, that such a duty cuts down their profits to the quick. It cuts 

 them down so that the business must be abandoned, and take away the 



lited States market, as you would take it away if a higher tariff was 

 Dpoaed, and the fishing business of the provinces would gradually die 



it ol existence. It is not a case let me repeat it, because there has 

 been KO much apparent sincerity in the belief that that tax would come 

 the consumer it is not the case of a tax put upon the whole 

 ie commodity, or the greater part of the commodity, but it is a tax 

 upon the smaller part of the commodity iu the only market to 

 >tl producers are confined; and you might just as well say, if 

 made watches, one here and one in Boston, which were just ex- 

 actly alike, and their watches Were both tn h snl,l in Rnsr/in Mint vnil 



atches were both to be sold iu Boston, that you 

 put a tax ot twenty-five or fitty per cent, on the importation of 

 lie Halifax watch into Boston and then raise the price. 



nly Instance in which the imposition of a tax upon a part of the 



ton of an article results in raising the price of the whole, is 



demand is active, where the supply is inadequate, and where 



