3092 AWARD OF THE FISHERY COMMISSION. 



No. 31. 



I Charles EL Pew of Gloucester in the County of Essex and Common- 

 wealth of Massachusetts, being duly sworn doth depose and say; 



I am forty years old aiid have been engaged in the fishing business 

 ever since I entered my fathers store as a boy of fourteen years old. 

 Our firm is John Pew & Sous, my brother and myself are the sous We 

 own twenty (20) fishing vessels and have averaged as many as that 

 number, their tonnage varies from forty (40) to one hundred (100) tons 

 each, they are exclusively engaged in the cod and mackerel fisheries. 

 Last year we had two vessels only engaged in the mackerel fishery in 

 the Canadian Waters and that not in fishing inshore. 



Since the fishery clauses of the Treaty of Washington took effect viz 

 1872, we have had four years experience of the operation of the free 

 fishing clauses. During those years we have caught mackerel to the 

 value of $167,000^ as shown by our sales in the United States waters 

 and $39,000^3 worth in British waters; of which $39,600^ worth I 

 think hardly any were taken within three miles of the shore. Our ves- 

 sels having chiefly fished at the Magdalen Islands. During the same 

 four years our catch of codfish &c has been $475,000^ no part of 

 which was caught within three miles of the British shore but all in the 

 deep seas and on the coast of the United States. Seven eighths of the en- 

 tire codfish catch has been off the coasts of the United States. Since 1872 

 the percentage of our catch of mackerel taken off the British coast has 

 decreased being in 1875 only 7,800 out of $156,014, total fish produc- 

 tion. The shore fisheries of the United States are far more valuable 

 than those off the British coasts. The value of the fisheries on the 

 British coast has been steadily diminishing. The quality of the mack- 

 erel taken off the British coast has been growing poorer and that off the 

 United States coast has grown better for some years past. 



The amount of baitboughlby the vessellsof our firm of the inhabitants 

 of the British Provinces was in 1874 about $500 worth in 1875 about 

 $800 worth, this bait was fresh herring for our vessels bound to the 

 banks of Newfoundland to fish for cod. We have never caught any bait 

 in British waters. Few if any United States vessels catch any bait in 

 their waters. All our mackerel bait consists of salted porgies taken off 

 the U. S. coast ; this fish is not found in the British waters : they are a 

 warm water shore fish and are rarely found beyond Mt. Desert which 

 is considered their eastern and northern limit. The pogies are to some 

 extent bought by the Colonists as bait for mackerel, their only other bait 

 for mackerel is herring which is much inferior. The right to land and 

 dry nets or cure fish on shore is of no value to anybody, this practice 

 has become wholly obsolete, the whole mode of fishing to which this re- 

 lates ceased more than a generation ago. All fish both cod and mack- 

 erel are brought home to cure the fishing vessels do not even cure their 

 own catch, but sell them green to be cured by fis'i dealers and packers. 

 The entire fishing fleet of Gloucester iu August 1875 was in all 392 ves- 

 sels, the number has been about the same for ten (10) years past though 

 the average tonnage has increased. In 1875 during the summer not 

 over 35 vessels entered tne Bay of St Lawrence or any other British 

 waters for Mackerel, the rest fished off the coasts of the United States 

 alone ; except about 100 on the banks of Newfoundland. As I have al- 

 ready stated the percentage caught in British waters has regularly de- 

 creased for five years past. 



The United States fishermen import nothing into the British Prov- 

 inces, the provincial fishermen import into the United States all their 



