2304 AWARD OF THE FISHERY COMMISSION. 



perity of Gloucester grows out of the right to catch fish within three 

 miles of the shore in British territorial waters ; is there any appreciable 

 part of the growth and wealth of Gloucester which depends on this 

 privilege ? A. I do not consider that it is any addition at all to the 

 wealth or growth of Gloucester 



Q. You never knew a New England town where there were enterpris- 

 ing men, who began poor and lived economically, who did not increase 

 in wealth ! A. No. 



By Mr. Davies : 



Q. Why do these men go fishing for 8300 a year when they can get 

 $600 by working on your wharves ! A. If they did not go fishing no 

 employment could be had on the wharves. Besides, the young men 

 would rather go fishing. It is their nature to be on the water. They 

 are used to it, commencing this life when they are boys ; and they like 

 its associations and to be with their friends on the water and have a 

 jolly time. 



Q. And money has nothing to do with it ? A. It has very little; but 

 the associations and the chance they have of doing better than $30 a 

 month has. They all g<? on shares. 



Q. They have a chance to rise and become masters ? A. Yes ; and 

 make more than thirty dollars a month. 



By Mr. Trescot : 



Q. Do these young men come from here ? A. Yes ; from Halifax in 

 particular ; a large number comes from the provinces and Newfoundland. 

 Three-fourths of our crews are single men. 



Q. Do they settle very largely in Gloucester I A. Yes ; our increase 

 of population has come largely from Nova Scotia. 



By Sir Alexander Gait: 



Q. I suppose that you have no more difficulty in getting crews to go 

 mackerel-fishing than to go cod-fishing I A. Our best and our smartest 

 men go cod-fishing, because they can make more at it. Our mackerel- 

 fishing crews are made up of odds and ends. 



Q. I thought you kept the vessels' crews together! A. They will go 

 cod-fishing, and then I will pick up a crew to go mackerel-fishing. 



Q. I understood you to say that you employed your vessels perhaps 

 more profitably cod-fishing during certain months of the year than at 

 anything else ; and that then you kept them employed either on your 

 own coast or in the Bay of St. Lawrence during the intermediate mouths; 

 that in fact the cod and mackerel fisheries fitted into each other, enabling 

 you to employ your vessels to advantage throughout the years ; and 

 that though it might be disadvantageous during one particular trip, still 

 the trade was so arranged that it enabled you for ten months of the 

 year to use your vessels in a certain circle of employment ? A. Yes. 

 Our vessels make six or eight voyages a year ; but these men are not at- 

 tached to the vessels save perhaps for one trip. They change from one 

 vessel to another. The best men follow cod-fishing on the Banks, and 

 the poorest men, the old men and boys, follow mackerel fishing. 



Q. You have said, 1 think, that cod-fishing was so hard on them that 

 they were very glad to go into the bay or on your own shores to fish 

 for two or three months at a different and rather easier kind of fishing ? 

 A. Yes ; and then there is a class of men that man our vessels on 

 mackerel voyages, and on these it is that we learn our boys the busi- 

 ness. Afterwards they will go cod-fishing. The mackerel-fishing busi- 

 ness in one sense has been a sort of nursery for fishermen among our 



