2752 AWARD OF THE FISHERY COMMISSION. 



will catch many more fish than others; but the best men will perhaps 

 earn $125 or $130, while the lowest amount thus earned will be perhaps 

 $75 a season. 



Q. Is this when they are furnished with boats ? A. Yes, and with 

 bait, being subject to no expense save that of feeding themselves, and 

 they live very cheaply. 



Q. How long would be the fishing season during which they would 

 earn $125 or $130 ? A. Four or four and a half months. 



Q. Is there any winter employment on the island ? A. O, yes ; a 

 great many of the younger men leave the island in winter, and go over 

 to Mirimichi, N. B., and work in the woods, spending the winter there 

 and returning in the spring. Quite a number do so. 



Q. If they stay on the island, can they earn wages in the winter ? 

 A. A great many of these fishermen have farms, and in winter some get 

 out firewood while others get out cooperage-stock, hoop poles, and 

 staves. They find something to do in winter, but they do not earn a 

 great deal. Most of them have farms some small ones and some large 

 ones. 



Q. What do you say about the value of mackerel swimming, where 

 they are thickest ? A. I do not think that my head is clear enough to 

 answer that question. 



Q. Have you ever known any place where the fishermen as a class get 

 more than a bare ordinary living on the average? A. Some of our 

 fishermen are very well off; but then they have farms right adjoining 

 the fishing grounds. 



Q. How good a chance have you where you are located of seeing the- 

 boats and vessels engaged in fishing ? A. I am there all the time, for 

 four or five months, and I have an opportunity of seeing them daily 

 from the time that I get up until dark ; I might constantly look off on 

 the water during the day from where I am. 



Q. Could any one with a pair of eyes have more constant opportunity" 

 of seeing the whole thing than you have for 30 miles' distance ? A. I 

 do not think that any one has a better opportunity than myself for see- 

 ing what is going on on the water for the four or five months that I am 

 there. 



Q. I understand you to say that if the duty on mackerel was reim- 

 posed in the United States, your firm would, except for a small portion 

 of the season, give up the mackerel business, and turn your attention 

 to something else ? A. That is my opinion decidedly. 



Q. If you could get rid of your property what would you do in that 

 event I A. If I could get rid of it at anything like reasonably fair 

 value, I should then put it into the market, and go into something else. 



Q. If you were going to carry on the mackerel fishery in vessels from 

 Prince Edward Island, would you resort to the United States coasts at 

 all ; and, if so, why, and how f A. Well, I think I should then be in 

 favor, for a portion of the year at any rate, of trying the fishing on the 

 American coast, that is, if we could get captains and crews that would 

 like to follow that business; and I suppose that a great many of them 

 would do so. 



Q. Do you mean with hooks and lines, or with seines, or with both ? 

 A. I do not know so much about it as to say. I should want to study 

 up this question before deciding on that point, because I think that 

 seining is getting rather played out, so they say. 



Q. You think that it is ? A. I think they have had pretty near ' 

 enough of it, and I do not know how profitable it would be to prosecute 

 hook and line fishing there. 





