2890 AWARD OF THE FISHERY COMMISSION. 



Q. What does an anchor cost ? A. This year they cost six cents a 

 pound, and an anchor will average 600 pounds for a vessel, without the 

 stock. The price for an anchor has this year been $38, and the price 

 has been as high as fifteen cents a pound. Some years the same 

 anchor has cost 800. 



Q. That is for the anchor and chain part ? A. It is for the anchor 

 and stock, and for nothing else. 



Q. What does a cable cost ! A. About $2 a fathom this year. I 

 think that a cable of 250 fathoms would cost this year as near $500 as 

 could be calculated. 



Q. How many cables have you in your vessel ? A. We generally 

 have one spring cable of about 250 fathoms in length. 



Q. How often has it to be renewed ? A. They are not renewed much 

 over once in two years. We generally have to buy from 100 to 150 

 fathoms of cable every year for a vessel that is following the fishing 

 right along. 



By Hon. Mr. Kellogg : 



Q. Where are they made? A. In Boston. They are spun and are 

 made of manila. We do not use chains at all. 



By Mr. Foster: 



Q. Your business expenses cover the period when there was as well 

 as when there was not a duty on fish ? You did business previous to, 

 during, and subsequent to reciprocity, and since the Treaty of Wash- 

 ington, and I want to know whether, in your judgment, if the duty of 

 82 a barrel were reimposed on mackerel coming from the provinces into 

 the American market, it would come out of the provincial fishermen or 

 out of the people of the United States ? A. It would come out of the 

 provincial fishermen, I should say. 



Q. How near prohibitory would a duty of $2 a barrel, put on all 

 grades of mackerel, be found ? A. I should think it would destroy all 

 the profit and make their business unprofitable. It would tend that 

 way. 



Q. What would be the effect of a duty of 81 a barrel on provincial 

 herring ? A. That would be total prohibition. Herring do not some- 

 times sell in the market at over $2.50 a barrel. 



Q. What has been the effect of admitting herring from the provinces 

 under the treaty as to the herring business ? To what extent has the 

 business of sending herring from the provinces to our market grown 

 up since the duty was removed ? A. I think it has increased. 



Q. Was it very large or was there any of it when the duty was on ? 

 A. I think it was then very small there was hardly any of it at that 

 time. 



Q. Have you vessels engaged in the halibut fishery ? A. Yes ; but 

 only incidentally. The vessels that fish for cod on George's Bank always 

 bring in more or less of halibut. 



Q. Fresh or salt ? A. Fresh ; the salt halibut comes from the Bank. 



Q. This has never with you been an exclusive fishery ? A. No. 



Q. How many vessels go from Gloucester to catch halibut f A. The 

 fieet this year, I think, numbered 31 vessels. 



Q. From your own knowledge you do not know where those vessels 

 go ; but, speaking from report, where have they gone ? A. Of late 

 years they have gone off into deep water off the western edge of the 

 Grand Bank and to the southern part of Saint Peters's and Quereau 

 Bank as it falls off toward the gulf. The fishing firms always follow 



