AWARD OF THE FISHERY COMMISSION. 1683 



granite, and as a sea-bathing place, has been owing mostly to the pru- 

 dence and sagacity, the frugality and laboriousness of the men brought 

 up as fishermen, who turn themselves into fish-dealers in middle life, 

 and carry their experience into it ; and it is only on those terms that 

 Gloucester has become what it is. An attempt was made at Salem, un- 

 der the best auspices, to carry on this business, with the best Gloucester 

 fishermen, and most experienced men concerned in it, by a joint-stock 

 company ; but in the matter of deep-sea fishing, " the Everlasting " 

 seems to have " fixed his canon " against its prosperity, except upon 

 the terms of frugality and laboriousuess. It never has succeeded other- 

 wise, and scarce on those terms, except it be with the aid of a bounty 

 from the government. 



Now, we say that the whole bay-fishing for mackerel is made pros- 

 perous simply on those terms; that it is no treaty-gift that has created 

 it, but it is the skill and industry of the fishermen, the capital invested 

 by the owners, and the patient, constant labor and skill of the owners 

 in dealing with their fish, after they are thrown upon their hands on the 

 wharf, and they have paid their fishermen, that has given it any value 

 in the market. I do not think it is worth while to speculate upon the 

 question whether fish in the water have any money value. I can con- 

 ceive that fish in a pond and that fish that cling to the shore, that have 

 a habitat, a domicile, like shell-fish, have an actual value. They are 

 sure to be found. It is nothing more than the application of mechanical 

 means that brings them into your hands. But certainly it is true tha,t 

 the value of the free-swimming fish of the ocean, pursued by the deep- 

 sea fishermen, with line or with net, must be rather metaphysical than 

 actual. To pursue them requires an investment of capital ; it requires 



; risk and large insurance; it requires skill, and it requires patient labor; 

 and when the fish is landed upon the deck, his value there, which is to 



i be counted in cents rather than in dollars, is the result of all these things 

 combined ; and if any man can tell me what proportion of those cents or 

 dollars which that fish is worth on the deck of the ship is owing to the 

 fact that the fishermen had a right to try for him, I think he will have 

 solved a problem little short of squaring the circle, and his name ought 

 to go down to posterity. No political economist can do it. I will not 

 say that the fish in the deep sea is worth nothing; but, at all events, the 



: right to attempt to catch it is but a liberty, and the result depends upon 



i the man. 



If there can be no other fishery than the one which you have the privi- 

 lege of resorting to, then it may be of great value to you to have that 

 privilege. If there be but one moor where he can shoot, the person who 

 is shooting for money, to sell the game that he takes, may be willing to 

 pay a high price for the privilege. But recollect that the fishing for the 

 free-swimming fish is over the whole ocean. The power of extending it 

 a little nearer shore may be of some value, I do not say that it is not, 

 but it strikes my mind as an absurd exaggeration, and as an utter fal- 

 lacy, to attempt to reason from the market-value of the fish there 

 caught, to the money-value of the privilege so extended. The fish are 

 worth, I will say, $12 a barrel ; but what does that represent, when the 

 American merchants, Hall and Myrick, both tell us that tire value on 

 the wharf at Prince Edward Island' is about $3.75 a barrel ? Well, sup- 

 pose the mackerel to be worth $3.75 a barrel on the wharf at Prince 

 Edward Island, what does that represent? Is that a thing which the 

 United States is to pay Great Britain for? Has Great Britain sold us 

 a barrel of pickled mackerel on the wharf ? Has anybody done it f I 

 think not. That represents the result of capital and of many branches 



