1912 AND FISHERIES rOMMISSIOX. 211 



therefore, at any rate a license fee sihould be exacted for the privilege of 

 trapping. 



In regard to the settler, it may be observed that it requires but 

 small labour and but little good fortune for such of them as engage in 

 trapping throughout the winter to catch fur sufficient to net them siums 

 considerably in excess of |300, and, therefore, it could not be accounted 

 a hardship if a Tsniall percentage of this sum had to be paid to the gov- 

 ernment for the privilege of undertaking trapping operations. 



In the case also of the trapper, operating from towns or villages and 

 chiefly interested in the capture of muskrats, plainly it would only be 

 reasonable to expect from him some compensation for the profits accru- 

 ing to him through the destruction of wild animals. No little trapping 

 of muskrats is, of course, carried on by lads from farms and villages, but 

 the value of the skins, as quoted in a previous section, is sufficient proof 

 that those who wished to trap muskrats could well afford to pay a 

 reasonable fee for the privilege of doing so on public lands. 



There remains, then, but the Indian to be considered. The nature 

 and habits of tlie Indian throughout the great bulk of the Province tend 

 to prevent his entering upon the generality of those occupations which 

 afford a livelihood to the white man. His domain is pre-eminently the 

 woods; his craft, that of hunter, trapper, and woodsman. In general 

 but small advantage accrues to the community through the existence of 

 an Indian, other than through those functions which he can discharge 

 in his native element, the woods, while, as before observed, the pursuit 

 of trapping is not in general calculated to attract the better class of 

 white man in the wilder regions to undertake it, but on the contrary 

 rather to serve as a means of gaining a competency for the shiftless and 

 lazy. It would, therefore, appear that while there can T3e no great 

 advantage in encouraging the white man to undertake trapping as a 

 sole or chief means of livelihood, siuch advantage would exist in the case 

 of the Indian, for not only would he thus be made to contribute materi- 

 ally to the public welfare, but his energies would be applied in the direc- 

 tion most suited to them. Consequently, even though a license fee might 

 with advantage be imposed on all other residents of the Province for the 

 privilege of trapping, the Indian should remain exempt from such license 

 fee, and be given a permit to trap free of charge. 



A great many of the illegalities perpetrated in connection with the 

 fur-bearing animals are directly to be attributed to the presence througli- 

 out the country of numbers of pedlars and small traders only too wil- 

 ling to purchase all that they can secure in the way of fur no matter 

 wliere, when or how it may have been secured. It cannot be claimed 

 that the presence of these men in the wild lands is of material advantage 

 to the community, for by their methods of trading not only do they 

 encourage lawlessness, but add, also, materially to the difficulties of the 

 reputable dealers in obtaining furs. It is plain, moreover, that but slight 

 control can ever be exercised over them, for they have no stationary place 



