AWARD OP THE FISHERY COMMISSION. 1647 



mum year iu return for the payment. Upon these two facts we can 

 rest. I do not care to go through the testimony that you have had 

 before you. I did make one or two tabular statements, but I do not 

 think it worth while to trouble you with them. The general results you 

 can get at as well as I did. You know the general run of the testimony. 

 You know whether I am saying what is fairly and reasonably accurate. 

 Our contention is that we have proved these points conclusively, and 

 taking them as the basis, there is no margin whatever left for an award 

 on account of profits accruing to the United States from the privilege 

 of inshore fishing. 



But there is another fact not stated in any of the evidence, but which 

 is clearly proven by the whole of it; and it is this: The mackerel mar- 

 ket is a speculative market ; its profit represents simply a commercial 

 venture, and not the profit to the fisherman. In other words, a barrel 

 of mackerel salted, packed, and sold, produces a result in which the profit 

 of the fisherman makes but a small part. Take the statement of Mr. 

 Hall, that he purchases regularly from the fishermen of Prince Edward 

 Island their mackerel at $3.75 per barrel. Now, whatever Mr. Hall sells 

 that barrel of mackerel for above and beyond $3.75 represents capital, 

 labor, skill, with which the fishery, as a fishery, has no concern. Between 

 the fish in the water and the fish in the market there is as much differ- 

 ence as there is between a pound of cotton in the field and a pound of 

 cotton manufactured; and you would have as much right to estimate 

 the value of a cotton plantation by the value of the cloth and yarn into 

 which its production has been manufactured, as you have to value the 

 fisheries by the value of the manufactured fish which are sold. 



Suppose that Mr. Hall, or a combination of Mr. Hall's, should purchase 

 the whole mackerel catch at $3.75, and then hold for such a rise in price 

 as they might force. This speculation might make Mr. Hall a millionaire 

 or a bankrupt, but would any man in his senses consider the result, be 

 it profit or loss, as representing the value of the mackerel fishery ? 



So little, indeed, does the value of fish enter into the market value of 

 the mackerel, that you have this statement from Mr. Pew, the largest 

 and longest established fish-merchant on this continent: "No. 1 bay 

 mackerel in the fall were bought by us at $22.50, and piled away over 

 winter, and I think the next May and June they sold down as low as 

 $4, $5, and $6 a barrel the same fish ; and 1 think that shore mackerel, 

 which had sold as high as $24, were then sold for about the same price." 



Would the mackerel market of that year have afforded you any fair 

 criterion by which to appraise the mackerel fishery of that year? What 

 interest had the mackerel fishermen in this speculative variation of the 

 market price? And you have the further and uncontradicted testi- 

 mony of more than one competent witness that when the mackerel catch 

 of 1870 was, with one exception, the largest ever known, prices were 

 maintained at a higher point than in years of very small catch. 



Upon this state of facts, proven by such competent witnesses as Proc- 

 tor, Sylvanus Smith, Myrick, Hall, and Pew, I submit that in estimat- 

 ing the value of the fishery you can only take the value of the raw 

 material that is, the fish as taken by the fisherman and by him sold to 

 the merchant; and even then the price he receives represents, besides 

 the value of the raw material, his time, his labor, his living, and h''s 

 skill. For throughout this argument you must not forget that the 

 British Government gives us nothing. For the freedom from duty, and 

 the right to fish in United States waters, it gives us the privilege only 

 of using our own capital, enterprise, and industry within certain limits. 

 It cannot secure us, and does not offer to secure us, a single fish. It 



