2280 AWARD OF THE FISHERY COMMISSION. 



the 1st December. It is a continnous business, and we keep the men 

 steadily employed. There are, perhaps, 50 vessels that start early in 

 the spring to fish on our own shores, seining mackerel. They don't pur- 

 sue cod-fishing at all. 



Q. Xow, with regard to your codfish; how many vessels have you on the 

 Banks now, and how many generally ? A. Well, perhaps I can't an- 

 swer that distinctly, as most of my vessels have fished for codfish a 

 large part of this season. One left her cod-fishing to go into the bay, 

 and there is one that has been mackereling all the year. 



Q. I only want a general idea how you provide your vessel with bait, 

 whether you take it with you or send into Newfoundland ? A. The 

 Grand Bank vessels ? Within a year or two our men have got into the 

 habit of going in and buying fresh bait, because it has not been on the 

 Bank within two or three years. If half of them have fresh bait, the 

 other half can do better if they have it. Formerly they used to use salt 

 bait with what squid they could catch on the Bank. They were caught 

 there for a succession of years. Within two or three years they seem to 

 have abandoned the fishing-grounds and gone inshore. Vessels that 

 left home previous to three years ago did not make land until they re- 

 turned. 



Q. As far as the experience of your vessels has gone, do you consider 

 it wiser to fish with salt bait and keep on fishing, or to go in for fresh 

 bait ? A. So far as the quantity of the fish is concerned, I don't think 

 there was much difference if we used the salt bait. We could procure 

 our fares. But our men are acquainted with one another; they can 

 catch more fish with fresh bait while on the grounds alongside of ves- 

 sels fishing with the salt bait than a vessel fishing with the salt. But 

 while a vessel is going in for fresh bait the vessel with the salt bait is 

 still continuing to catch fish, and so it is equal. 



Q. With regard to results, it is more remunerative than mackerel ! 

 A. Yes. 



Q. Is it so as a fishery or as the cod is handled after it is caught ? 

 A. It is not in the business of catching fish. After the fish are disposed 

 of in their green state as they arrive in port, from the time they ar- 

 rive until they go to the consumer, the handling of them gives us our 

 business. 



Q. Then even the profits of cod fishing are rather mercantile than from 

 the fishing itself? A. It is the profits derived from handling them, 

 curing, drying them, and finding a market for them, and sometimes we 

 get a chance of a rise, buying low. 



Q. What has been the average that your cod-fishing vessels have done? 

 Can you take any one of them and show what it has done for a series of 

 years? A. I cannot show what any vessel has done in the cod-fishing 

 business exclusively for any year. I can say taking her whole work. 



Q. Take any one of your vessels and explain what her work has been. 

 A. 'I have figures taken from my books to show the cost and annual 

 expenses as well as the recepts of a vessel in the cod and mackerel fish- 

 eries. 



Q. Explain that to the Commission. A. The Joseph O. was built in 

 1868, and the cost of the hull was $6,175. The cost of rigging, sail, an- 

 chors, cables, &c., all beyond the hull, and fitting her for sea, and the 

 expense of the first year, running expenses, was 86,957, making a total of 

 $13,132. Her earnings were $4,600, leaving the vessel to stand on the 

 books $8,529, after one season's business. 



Q. How many seasons have you carried her in that way ? A. Nine, 

 down to January 1, 1877. 



