298 EEPORT OF ONTARIO GAME No. 52 



nue-producing qualities, which would enable the administrative and 

 protective services of the Department of Game and Fisheries to be 

 placed on a splendid footing, provided with an adequate equipment and 

 with sufficiently paid and efficient subordinate officers, and able finan- 

 cially to undertake all necessary measures of con-servation and propa- 

 gation. An estimate of what such a license will produce can be formed 

 from the information, based on the United States statistics, given to 

 your Commissioner by Dr. T. S. Palmer, of the United States Biological 

 Survey at Washington, who deals particularly with returns of this 

 nature, and who stated that the numbers paying the resident hunting 

 license, in the different states in which it is in force, ranged from 4 to 10 

 per cent, of the population, running highest in those districts in which 

 population was most evenly distributed, and least in the territories 

 where the bulk of the population was confined in great cities. 



This same authority, as an estimate of the possibilities in Ontario, 

 gave as his opinion that from 3 per cent, to 5 per cent, of the popula- 

 tion could be expected to pay the fee, if such a license were imposed. 

 This, on a basis of 2,000,000 souls in the Province, would mean a revenue 

 of from 160,000.00 to |100,000.00. Your Commissioner realizes that to 

 decide whether the bulk of the people is ready to favour such a tax, 

 even though its advantages are so apparent, is a most difficult matter, 

 but unhesitatingly states it as his opinion that any license, whether it 

 were a Nipigon fishing license, a non-resident angler's tax, or even a 

 hunting license, would be cheerfully paid by the majority of sportsmen, 

 if the Government adopted a policy of devoting all the moneys so 

 received entirely and directly to the protection of the fisheries, game and 

 birds. 



Many of the states of the Union who have adopted such a license, 

 following the French system, exempt landowners from its operation, 

 and your Commissioner is decidedly of the opinion that, in the enact 

 ment of such a measure in this Province, it would be advisable to 

 exempt both the farmer and the settler on their own lands and adjacent 

 waters, for to afford them this privilege over the rest of the community 

 is to take the first step in their education as to the economic possibilities 

 of game and birds, and these are most essentially the classes whom it is 

 imperative to educate in this direction. Naturally, also, as such a license 

 would be a hunting and not a gun license, it would in no way be opera- 

 tive against those who engaged solely in trap or target shooting. 



That the state has sovereign right over the game within its borders 

 has been established in law, and it would therefore seem not to be 

 unreasonable for the state to impose a charge on those of its community 

 who profit at the public expense, whether it be by big game or small, 

 by four-footed creatures or by those that fly, even though by reason of 

 their scarcity the charge for hunting certain species might have to be 

 placed at a higher figure than others, providing always that the pur- 

 chase of the more expensive license, even though for a limited period. 



