32 REPORT OF ONTARIO GAME No. 52 



for them, or, in other words, to put them up to public auction. By this 

 itieans a fair return for the privilege granted is assured to the public, 

 for if th(i prices are obviously insufficient, it remains within the power 

 of the Government to refuse the tenders, and under such conditions the 

 general law of supply and demand will, in most cases, ensure a satis- 

 factory figure being offered. 



When the average cost of catching the fish, which may approxi- 

 mately be estimated at 3 cents per pound, all included, is compared with 

 the average retail price of fish, 8 to 15 cents per pound at a conservative 

 figure, it becomes plain that the concession granted by a fishing license 

 has a considerable value, and, consequently, it would seem reasonable 

 to conclude that there must exist therein a fair margin for public com- 

 petition — that is, that a fee for the privilege should be obtainable over 

 and above the regular tax on the catch, as suggested. It would seem, 

 moreover, that as the value of the particular fishing concession would 

 be liable to fluctuation, no better method than that of public tender 

 could be devised to secure it. Such a system would obviously require 

 a clear delimitation of the bounds of the concession, and a precise state- 

 ment of the number of licenses, with privileges granted by them, that 

 would be granted in any particular area. 



The greatest desideratum in regard to the Provincial commercial 

 fisheries is plainly that citizens of Ontario should, as far as possible, pro- 

 fit by catching the fish, and that the population of Ontario generally 

 should profit to the greatest possible extent by the fish Avhen it has been 

 caught. Attention has, however, been called to the domination of a 

 foreign corporation over the Provincial commercial fisheries, whereby a 

 precisely opposite result is being at present attained. Evidently, if 

 under prevailing conditions licenses were put up to auction, the bulk of 

 them w^ould, in all probability, still fall into the hands of the corpora- 

 tion referred to, to the detriment of the few indepenelent Ontario fisher- 

 men, although even so a little additional revenue would be likely to 

 accrue to the Government, If, however, it were possible to adjust 

 matters so that the domination of the fish trust over the commercial 

 fisheries of the Province could be curbed, and citizens of Ontario thereby 

 encouraged to enter on the fishing business on a considerable scale as 

 likely to prove a profitable venture to themselves, the system of putting 

 fishing licenses up to auction, while enforcing a fixed tax on the catch, 

 could not apparently but be profitable from the point of view of revenue, 

 as an incentive to legitimate competition and thereby to trade, and, 

 lastly, as an assurance that the exploitation of the fisheries would ulti- 

 mately fall into the hands of an enterprising class of citizens of the Pro- 

 vince. Various methods of producing such a situation will be discussed 

 in a succeeding paragraph. 



The main difficulties which would be encountered in introducing 

 the system lie, apparently, in the facts (a) that the commercial fishing 

 business has to be learned like any other vocation, more especially so in 



