1912 AND FISHERIES COMMISSION. 15 



is a fact too obvious to need explaining, and it is equally clear that in, 

 proportion as quantities of fish are removed from such waters, so will the 

 rate of catch to each unit of net diminisli. Consequently, when inland 

 commercial fisheries have been exploited for some little while, even over 

 vast but, nevertheless, strictly limited areas, such as that of the Great 

 Lakes, there must come a time when the multiplication of nets ceases to 

 be commercially profitable. It has, in fact, been held by many authori- 

 ties that, since each area will onh^ produce a certain amount of fish, 

 dependent more or less on the natural and artificially assisted increase 

 of previous j^ears, it is extremely doubtful whether more fish are actually 

 captured where the proportion of nets to the area is excessive than if the 

 amount of nets was considerably reduced, and in any case that the situa- 

 tion is bound to adjust itself through economic causes, those weaker 

 financially amongst the fishermen going to the wall in due course. In 

 consequence, throughout a considerable portion of the Great Lake waters 

 no effort at all has been made to restrict the numbers or lengths of nets 

 in use. 



In theory this argument is, in all probability, perfectly sound, but 

 in practice, under the conditions Avhich exist, its logic is questionable. 

 In the first place it would seem to presuppose the prevalence of genuine 

 rivalry among fishermen, each working for his own interests, and takes 

 no stock of a condition where the vast majority of the fishermen are but 

 the creatures of a great and powerful corporation. Secondly, it deduces 

 that complete exhaustion will never actually occur, because such exhaus- 

 tion would be commercially unprofitable. Here, again, is an assumption 

 open to the gravest suspicion, for it takes no count of the operations of 

 a great corporation which, in its avaricious cupidity for fat and im- 

 mediate dividends, is but all too willing to extract the last ounce of fish 

 food from anj waters on which it can lay its grasp to-day, leaving to- 

 morrow and the dim future to take care of itself. Thirdly, no account is 

 taken of location by the champions of this argument, although it must 

 be plain that where nets are thickly set in channels, or across narrows, 

 along which the fish are wont to move as they wander over the area of 

 their particular feeding grounds, the numbers of fish in that locality will 

 of necessity very rapidly diminish. Undoubtedly, however, there is much 

 strength in the premises of the argument itself, namely, that each area 

 will only produce a certain amount of fish, and, even though extraneous 

 conditions may be such as to prevent the automatic adjustment of the 

 proper relation between nets and area, nevertheless the argument is use- 

 ful as demonstrating the fact that a limitation of nets to the minimum 

 quantity that will catch that amount must be an economic advantage, for 

 the less the expense at whichi tlie fish is caught, the less ought to be the 

 price to the consumer. 



The price of fish has been rising steadily and there has been a corre- 

 sponding tendency of recent years towards an increase in the quantities 

 of nets, as the following table discloses: 



