2894 AWARD OF THE FISHERY COMMISSION. 



Q. Why is it so ? A. I think that it develops the Nova Scotian fish- 

 ery, and makes for us a rival here. 



Q. That is a benefit to us ; but why is it an injury to you ? A. Be- 

 cause if your fishery is kept down, the men engaged in it will come up 

 from the provinces and go in our vessels. I think that the larger part 

 of your best skippers learned their .trade in American vessels. 



Q. Is that the only injury it is to you? A. Well, the only injnry 

 yes ; only to have a rival in business is always an injury. If a man has 

 a clear field, he always does better than if he has a rival. 



Q. Why ? Does this affect the price at all ? A. What do you mean 

 by price ? 



Q. The price you obtain for your fish when you sell them ? A. Well, 

 not much. I do not know that it affects the price a great deal. 



Q. Then it does you no injury? A. Yes; if it builds up an oppo- 

 sition trade, it has such an effect. 



Q. How can it, if you get the same prices the while ? A. Yes ; but 

 then we have to catch more fish. 



Q. The free admission of fish does not effect the catch ? A. Cer- 

 tainly it does. If you increase the product of fish in any particular di- 

 rection, of course it has that effect. 



Q. I cannot see how the free admission of fish can affect your catch ? 

 A. For instance, we go to the Grand Banks, and yon now fit out vessels 

 to go there ; and to all the places where our fishermen go, yours also 

 go. 



Q. As to vessels mackerel-fishing, we are withdrawing from it ! A. 

 You have built up a mackerel-fishing fleet ? 



Q. The evidence is the other way 1 A. During reciprocity, for in- 

 stance, quite a large fleet of vessels was built up along Lunenburg and 

 about there ; and when the Reciprocity Treaty was abrogated, I think 

 that quite a number of vessels were left on the stocks, if I am not mis- 

 taken, and were not built and finished for one or two years afterwards, 

 though when they were commenced they were intended to be fishing- 

 vessels. 



Q. You are giving your impressions, I suppose ; you do not profess 

 to intimate that you know this to have been the case ? A. Well, I know 

 it as well as I know Nova Scotia to be down here. 



Q. Were you then there present ! A. Parties that were there told 

 me of it. 



Q. You have it from hearsay ? A. Parties owning them, or who were 

 having them built, told me x so. 



Q. I am speaking of mackerel-fishing vessels ; and the evidence is to 

 the effect that our mackerel-fishing fleet instead of increasing has been 

 decreasing in number? A. That is the case everywhere; it is general. 



Q. Is the number diminishing very largely ? A. Yes ; it is so on our 

 own coast. 



Q. So the free admission of fish does not develop our fisheries in that 

 respect ; 10 or 12 years ago we had 30 or 40 vessels from Prince Ed- 

 ward Island engaged more or less in the fisheries, and now we have 

 hardly any vessels so engaged ; that seems to point the conclusion in 

 the opposite direction ? A. That is because the business is not profit- 

 able. 



Q. But, so far from that being the case, the business has doubled and 

 quadrupled 10 or 20 times over ? A. The mackerel business ? 



Q. Yes. A. Where! 



Q. We have 20 times the capital engaged in it now than was the case 



