1842 AWARD OF THE FISHERY COMMISSION. 



Holland C. Payson, Westport. Nova Scotia, at p. 399, says : 



The small American schooners fishing in our vicinity catch their own bait. 



John Purney, Sandy Point, Nova Scotia, p. 421, says : 



The other day Americans were fishing for bait inside of Shelburne lights. One of the 

 captains of the vessels told me he had taken 3 barrels that day in the harbor of small mack- 

 erel for bait. The United States vessels could not carry on their deep-sea fishery without 

 getting fresh bait. 



That is an epitome of tbe evidence, not the whole of it, and your hon- 

 ors will find on examination that the evidence is strong on the point, 

 and that nearly all the witnesses agree that they cannot get on without 

 tbe fresh bait. I am not going to touch on that point, because it was 

 successfully dealt with by my learned friend Mr. Whiteway, who, I 

 think, effectually settled the question of salt bait. It is admitted on all 

 hands that it cannot for a moment compete with the fresh bait. 



The next point to which I turn your honors' attention is a part of our 

 case which has been made the object of attack on the other side, the 

 Grand Mauan fishery; I mean the fishery around the island of Grand 

 Manan, Campobello, and Deer Island, and adjacent islands, and on the 

 main shore of Charlotte opposite. I do not intend to call your attention 

 to the evidence, for the time which has been given me in which to close 

 my argument will not enable me to do so ; I therefore pass it over by 

 calling your honors' attention simply to the result of that evidence. It 

 is proved by Mr. McLaughlin, who is admitted on all hands to be not 

 only an able man, but an honest, straightforward man, a man who had 

 a practical knowledge of the fishing business, and a personal friend of 

 Professor Baird, that the British catch was in value over $500,000 on 

 the island of Grand Manan alone. He had especial reasons for know- 

 ing it, because he was fishery warden, and it was his business to find 

 out what the catch was ; and he says the catch put on paper was below 

 the actual catch, for this sufficient reason, that the men to whom he 

 went and he went to every person engaged in the fishing were afraid 

 of being taxed to the extent of their full catch, and therefore gave him 

 an underestimate of the quantity. When he explained to them that in 

 point of fact he was only fishery warden, they said they knew he was some- 

 thing else, and that he was a county councillor, and they were afraid 

 he would carry the information he obtained as fishery warden to the 

 county council. Mr. McLaughlin says that the figures are entered un- 

 der the mark. He then says that the catch of the island of Campobello 

 and Deer Island is as large as the catch of Grand Manan. He says in 

 regard to those three islands of Grand Manan, Campobello, and Deer 

 Jsland, and the adjacent islands, that the American catch round those 

 inlands is as great or greater than the British catch ; that is to say, 

 there are two million dollars' worth taken round those islands. Upon 

 the main shore, he says, from all he can learn, and he has talked with 

 different men engaged in the business on the main shore, from Lepreau 

 to Letite, there is as great a catch on the main shore as is taken round 

 the islands. 



That statement of Mr. McLaughlin, which was a matter of opinion, is 

 corroborated as a matter of fact by Mr. James Lord and Mr. James R. Mc- 

 Lean, who were not only practical fishermen, but were personally engaged 

 in the trade, and own fishing-vessels. Mr. Foster says: "If you admit the 

 statement to be true, look what follows. A larger quantity of herring 

 is taken round Grand Manan than the whole foreign importation of the 

 United States." We have nothing to do with that. The American 

 counsel have undertaken to show that away out in the Bay of Ftmdy, 

 on some ledges far beyond the three-mile' line, at what they call the 



