NATIONAL FISHERY CONGRESS. 261 



moment's consideration will show the mistake in this. The true fish are nearly as 

 nomadic as the whale or seal and personal property is as readily assured in the one 

 as in the other, in proof of which we may note the salmon before mentioned, the fry 

 of which was placed in the Delaware and other rivers, whose total disappearance for 

 about five years caused the belief that the planting had been a failure, when the 

 discovery of well-grown healthy salmon in those rivers proves that they wandered out 

 to sea, returning when nature directed them to the shallower and less tempestuous 

 waters, presumably for the sake of reproducing their kind. The same can certainly be 

 said of other fish, and doubtless the assertion is true that the mackerel, herring, cod, 

 and halibut of the lower shores belong to the same shoals or schools as those that 

 later swarm to the nets of the Canadian fishermen. Only international protection 

 can secure immunity from future depletion if this be so; and this must not be a 

 threatening attitude of one nation toward another, but a mutually amicable agree- 

 ment, providing that a given number of vessels shall be permitted to fish during fixed 

 legal seasons. At first this may look like a tyrannical blow to the men who depend 

 upon these fisheries for a livelihood, but the result will soon show that such legislation 

 would secure successful catches every season. 



History will show that the times of disaster, when but few returns are obtained, 

 have in nearly every case succeeded phenomenally enormous catches. Perhaps the 

 bad season does not come directly after the good one; but examine the reports and 

 they will show that large returns have induced a great number of vessels and men to 

 engage in the business, prospect of gain being the incentive to the industry, until in 

 a few years the overproduction results in a falling off, bringing trouble and distress 

 to the towns and villages to which the enterprise naturally belongs. Since the fisher- 

 men of Galilee deplored their long nights of useless toil and waiting for nets to fill 

 there have been men disheartened by failure and consequent distress. The days of 

 miracles have passed away long since, but the increase of intelligence in late genera- 

 tions and the development of talent and genius were, no doubt, intended to supply 

 their place. The law of humane justice must come to the relief and encouragement of 

 our fellow-men, and in no way can this be secured with regard to the fisheries except 

 through an agreement between countries whose contiguous possessions give them 

 equal interests in the inhabitants of the sea or its tributaries. There must not only be 

 laws limiting seasons, but vessels and men, so that no one nation possessing greater 

 facilities for hunting shall take all the fish and leave little or none for their neighbors. 



International consideration should have been directed to the seal fisheries as soon 

 as the United States made the Territory of Alaska its own. Had that been done the 

 animals would not now be so near extinction. It is sincerely to be hoped that the 

 Fish Commission will not only take these universal protective measures into consider- 

 ation, but that it will urge such legislation upon the intelligence of the proper 

 authorities, else the efforts now made to propagate and greatly increase the number 

 of desirable fish will be eventually futile, as the augmenting quantities will only 

 tempt capital to hurry a war of extermination in the effort to secure all that skill can 

 obtain in a given period. Neither threat nor watchfulness can secure protection half 

 so easily as a friendly understanding upon the subject, which would unquestionably 

 result in an international arrangement tending with equal favor toward the good of 

 everyone engaged in any and every branch of the fisheries. 



But the protection of fish and other useful water animals must extend farther 



