AWARD OF THE FISHERY COMMISSION. 2957 



Q. What is the difference either in cost or in advantage between 

 taking out a permit to touch and trade, and taking a register? A. A 

 permit to touch and trade would simply cost 25 cents. In case a vessel 

 under a fishing license wishes to take a register it has to give up the 

 license and take out a register, which would cost $2.25. The other 

 expenditures to which the vessel would be liable under a register would 

 be a tonnage tax of thirty cents per ton, and also a hospital tax of forty 

 cents per month on each individual member of the crew for the time she 

 had the register. 



Q. Under a register the vessel would have to enter and clear at every 

 port, and that is a certain additional co-it? A. Yes. 



Q. Take a Gloucester vessel that is going fishing and she thinks she 

 may want to purchase bait, or, at all events, to go and fish and purchase 

 frozen herring ; if she takes a register, when she returned with the cargo 

 she would have to enter and clear, and if she went out fishing she would 

 have to enter and clear every voyage? A. Yes. 



Q. Whereas, if it takes out a fishing license with a permit to touch 

 and trade she could go and come without any further entries ? A. Cer- 

 tainly. 



Q. Then those vessels pay none of the duties you refer to ? A. With 

 a fishing license, with permit to touch and trade, no duties are exacted. 



Q. With regard to the hospital tax. That is paid on every entry? A. 

 On every entry of a vessel under a register. No hospital tax is exacted 

 trom our fishermen. 



Q. A vessel under a register would have to pay the hospital tax 'at 

 the port of entry without she had paid it at the port from which she 

 cleared ? A. At every new entry. 



Q. Then a vessel going out of Gloucester, which takes a permit to 

 touch and trade, would be considered as going on a trading voyage! 

 A. Most certainly, it takes it for that purpose. 



Q. With regard to Gloucester vessels that go to buy frozen herring, 

 do they, as a general rule, take a license to touch and trade? A. They 

 do. 



Q. It gives to the voyage, in the eye of the law of the United States, a 

 trading character ? A. Mqst certainly. 



Q. Do you mean that all Gloucester vessels that go fishing, say for 

 mackerel, take out permits to"'touch and trade ? A. No, only those that 

 buy frozen herring. We have never had occasion to issue permits to 

 touch and trade to other vessels. The mackerel-fishing is conducted 

 under a general fishing license. 



Q. Does the permit to touch and trade confine them to purchase her- 

 ring, or does it authorize them to do a general trade ? A. Ic allows 

 them to trade in the products of any country, wherever they may be on 

 its shores, or to which they may go ; otherwise they would be liable to 

 confiscation and seizure for trailing under a fishing license. 



Q. Then, as far as the permit goes, a vessel goes out under it, say 

 mackerel-fishing? A. Yes. 



Q. And when it buys frozau herring it is in the way of trade ? A. 

 It is a commercial voyage. 



Q. Is there a drawback allowed on salt used in the fishin-g business 

 of the United States? A. There is for all fish taken by American ves- 

 sels a drawback allowed to the amount of the duty, eight cents per one 

 hundred pounds. In 1872 the duty was eighteen cents per one hundred 

 pounds, and it has been reduced in the tariff to eight cents per one hun- 

 dred pounds. 



