1868 AWARD OF THE FISHERY COMMISSION. 



Now. this is very extraordinary language for any man to use. The 

 admission is clear, and also the conclusion which Mr. Tuck draws from 

 it. It is tbis : they want our inshore fisheries, free from those restrictions 

 the effect of which the United States fishermen have so long felt ; and 

 this is simply a declaration made on the part of American citizens 

 that a solemn agreement entered into between their country and Great 

 Britain is an agreement which they do not choose to keep. But of 

 course such views cannot be tolerated in any court. 



Xow, let us see what are the views as to the value of our fisheries 

 entertained by the persons who live in Boston, the very center of the 

 fish trade. I will call your attention for a few moments to the first 

 annual report of the Boston Board of Trade, of 1855, and just after the 

 ^Reciprocity Treaty had come in force. It was presented at the annual 

 meeting which was held on the 17th January, 1855. I will only read an 

 extract, but the whole book may go in, if necessary, and be considered 

 as read, if you please. This is the same extract which I read when I 

 cross-examined Mr. Wonson : 



But in connection with the Reciprocity Treaty, it is to the importance of the fisheries that 

 your directors wish at this time particularly to call your attention : seventy per cent, of the 

 tonnage employed in the whale, cod, and mackerel fisheries in the United States belongs 

 to Massachusetts, and Boston is the business center. 



By colonial construction of the Convention between the United States and Great Britain 

 of 1-^18, we were excluded from not less than four thousand miles of fishing-ground. The 

 valuable mackerel fishery is situated between the shore and a line drawn from the St. Croix 

 Kiver southeast to Seal Island, and extending along the Atlantic coast of Nova Scotia, 

 about three miles from the coast, around Cape Breton, outside Prince Edward Island, across 

 the entrance to the Bay of Chaleur ; thence outside the island of Anticosti to Mt. Joly on 

 the Labrador coast, where the right of shore-fishing commences. The coasts within these 

 limits following their several indentations are not less than four thousand miles in extent, 

 all excellent fishing-grounds. Before the mackerel fishery began to be closely watched and 

 protected, our vessels actually swarmed on the fishings-ground within the spaces inclosed by 

 the line mentioned. 



Each of these vessels made two or three full fares in the season, and some thousands of 

 valuable cargoes were landed every year in the United States, adding largely to our wealth 

 ami prosperity. 



A sad contrast has since existed. From Gloucester only one hundred and fifty-six vessels 

 were sent to the Bay of St. Lawrence in 1853. Of these, not more than one in ten made the 

 yicond trip, and even they did not get full fares the first trip, but went a second time in the 

 hope of doing better. The principal persons engaged in the business in Gloucester estimated 

 that the loss in 1653 amounted to an average of one thousand dollars on each vessel, with- 

 out counting that incurred from detention, delays, and damages from being driven out of 

 the harbor and from waste of time by crews. It was agreed by all parties that if their ves- 

 sels could have had free access to the fishing-grounds as formerly, the difference to that dis- 

 trict alone would have been at least four hundred thousand dollars. 



In J-.V^ there were forty-six vessels belonging to Beverly; thirteen of them went to the 

 bay in Je.'yJ, but, owing to tue restrictions, their voyages were wholly unsuccessful, and 

 none of them went in Jo3. 



At SaU-ni, only two mackerel licenses were granted in 1853, and at Marblehead only six. 

 M-wburyport there are ninety fishing-vessels ; seventy of these went to the bay for 

 .okerel in JeT>3, but almost all of them, it is said, made ruinous voyages. At Boston only 

 lozen licenses were granted for this fishery in 1853, and very few of the one hundred ve- 

 ing to the towns of Dennis and Harwich, on Cape Cod two-thirds of which are 

 I in the mackerel fishery went to the bay for mackerel last year, because of the ill- 

 's intending the operations of the year previous. One of their vessels of one hundred 

 burden, manned by sixteen men, was six weeks in the bay in Id53, and relumed with 

 only one barrel of mackerel. 



Unit-** some change had taken place beneficial to the interests of our hardy fishermen, the 



enes would have been wholly ruined, and in all probability have entirely ceased 



ii a very limited scale on our own shores. The one hundred and fifty thousand tons 



'hipping employed in those fisheries would have been obliged to seek employment else- 



ere, and the product of the fisheries themselves, amounting to three or four million dol- 



iiiual y, would have been lost to us. The present treaty opens to us again all these 



ishene, and our thanks are due to the distinguished statesmen who have labored 



ringing it to a successful termination ; and your directors are most happy to make men- 



tbe servjces of Israel D. Andrews, esq.-a gentleman whom we hope to have the 



