104 REPORT OF THE FISH AND GAME COMMISSION. 



enlisted, so fai- as possible, as iiifoi'iiiaiits and L-ooperators in such otlier 

 lines as were possible, although a considerable part cannot understand 

 just why the state cannot take a sport iii<,f chance upon their services 

 toward the conservation of sport. 



Likewise, were it possible to keep an accurate record of requests for 

 information coming along the various avenues of incpiiry — mails, tele- 

 phones, calls at the office — the percentage of increase would be found 

 to liave approximately doubled each year. While in great measure such 

 increases may be due to the establishment of a comprehensive and accu- 

 rate "Sportsman's Information Bureau'' as an ad.junct of its general 

 work, the explanation is in part found in the steady widening out of 

 the Fish and Game Commission's activities; and to a natural following 

 up of the very great annual increases in the numbers of hunters and 

 anglers licensed. 



LICENSE SALES. 

 Most public service bodies are charged with the expenditure of 

 moneys turned over to them from the general tax funds on a pre- 

 arranged basis which admits of budgeting expenditures, and arranging 

 outlays in advance. The Fish and Game Commission happens to be 

 numbered among those which must support their own efforts by a direct 

 taxation of the more immediately benefited class; and for many years 

 past, conservation has in no sense been a charge upon the general tax 

 funds of the state. Surely, in a state whose phenomenal growth stands 

 as a monument to the pulling power of her manifold attractions, no 

 extended elaboration of the argument is necessary ; and it is needless, 

 for the sportsmen of southern California have most nobly proved, not 

 only that they can, but that they most heartily will, pay the costs of 

 propagating and protecting fish and game. Nor do they ask more than 

 that their moneys shall be expended as intelligently and as effectively 

 as a board of business men, backed by the ablest experts in their several 

 lines obtainable, shall direct. "With the collection of those moneys, the 

 average sportsman has little concern ; but since the financing of con- 

 servation work is its very foundation, the Fish and Game Commission 

 must needs give the utmost consideration to increasing its revenues by 

 greater placing of licenses, sin; e each brings in the single dollar income 

 that was established when a dollar did double duty as compared with 

 today. 



 To the end that the public might more easily procure licenses, and 

 revenues be increased by a larger volume of sales. Commissioner M. J. 

 Connell, who has charge of this Southern Division, recommended, and 

 after considerable effort, secured a law which permits the Commission 

 to issue — not to sell — any number of licenses to any selected agent, to 

 exact a bond, or cash-deposit equal in value to the amount of the licenses 



