NATIONAL FISHERY CONGRESS. 159 



large income. The prospects of acquiring a large revenue to the State have been held out. The 

 income to be derived from oyster-culture has been very much magnified by those who have given the 

 subject attention, and legislatures have become imbued with an entirely erroneous idea concerning 

 the matter. Their aim has, therefore, been to secure as largo an amount of the revenue as possible, 

 and in many cases this has resulted in the enactment of laws which were practically prohibitory, so 

 far as oyster-culture is concerned. This is the case in the State of Virginia. They have there an 

 enactment allowing the leasing of the land. The annual rental was at first 25 cents per acre. The 

 legislators from the interior of the State of Virginia believed that vast revenues were being derived 

 from these oyster-bars, and it immediately became their aim to secure a larger share of this re venue for 

 the State. The consequence has been that the annual rental has been raised, to the detriment of 

 oyster-culture. 



Col. F. C. Zacharie, in discussing the subject, spoke as follows : 



As a member of the bar, as a lawyer, I desire to say something in regard to the laws which we 

 have in the State of Louisiana, supplementary to the comments of Mr. Blackford and Dr. Moore. I 

 am not familiar enough with the oyster laws of the other States to say what their provisions are, or 

 what is the principle upon which the oyster tax is based. One of the chief difficulties which we have 

 had in Louisiana has been that oyster-culture is looked iipon by a large portion of our legislators as 

 an experiment, and people from the interior are very ill-disposed toward making any experiments which 

 increase taxation upon them. The theory of taxation is that it is a correlative and corresponding 

 duty between the citizens and the government; that the government shall give him protection in life, 

 liberty, and property, and that the tax which is levied on him is simply a correlative duty from the 

 taxpayer to pay his proportionate share toward that protection. 



Now, in view of this, we have sought in Louisiana not to derive any revenue for the State 

 beyond the needs of the regulation and protection of the oyster fishery, and so we have held out for 

 very small taxation or fishing licenses, and have a tax upon planted oysters a very small tax, for the 

 purpose of meeting the expenses of the particular production and regulation of that particular 

 industry so that we have not sought to make the oyster industries of the State a source of general 

 revenue. This is a tentative process or principle, because we look forward to the day, or at least some 

 of us do, when these industries will become very much developed and very valuable, and of course 

 as they become more valuable and remunerative and the protective system is more detailed and 

 complicated, then will be the time for the State to tax that property, as it does all other property, in 

 proportion to its value. 



I believe I make myself clear in announcing that the policy of my State has been not to derive 

 a revenue from the oyster in dustry as a matter of general revenue, but merely to attempt to raise a 

 revenue sufficient to regulate and protect the industry, and when we placed it on that basis we found 

 that the people from north Louisiana and the interior middle district of Louisiana were perfectly 

 willing to pass any legislation which they thought productive of good in regard to the oyster industry, 

 providing it did not cost them anything. 



Mr. Meehan read the paper by Dr. Bushrod W. James, of Philadelphia, on " Inter- 

 national protection for the denizens of the seas and waterways." 



Mr. J. F. Welborne, of Sauford, Fla., read a paper by Mr. George W. Scobie, of 

 Titusville, Fla., entitled ii The fishing industry on the east coast." 



Dr. H. F. Moore read an article by Dr. J. P. Moore, of Philadelphia, on u The 

 utility and methods of mackerel propagation." 



Adjournment was then taken until Monday morning, January 24. 



SATURDAY, January 22. 



In the evening, in the music hall of the Tampa Bay Hotel, Mr. Charles H. Town- 

 send, of the United States Fish Commission, gave a lecture on "The world's seal 

 fisheries, with special reference to the American fur-seal." The lecture was illus- 

 trated by lantern slides. 



