928 CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. 



" Collector, Port Hood, to deputy minister of fisheries. 



" POKT HOOD, NOVA SCOTIA, March 16, 1887. 



" Solomon Jacobs, of schooner Mollie Adams, sent one of his crew 

 to report 13th September last ; he made a report. I told him, however, 

 that the report should be made by the master. A few hours after- 

 wards Jacobs himself came and reported. They got Dan. McLennan, 

 who is now in Halifax, to write out the reports. I believe he charged 

 them 25 cents each for brokerage. No other charges whatever were 

 made." 



The minister states that he has no doubt that the other payments 

 at customs ports alluded to by Mr. Bayard were made for services 

 rendered Captain Jacobs by persons making out his entry papers, 

 and which he does not appear to have been qualified to do himself. 



With reference to Mr. Bayard's reiteration of Captain Jacobs's 

 complaint that in different harbors he was obliged to pay a different 

 scale of dues, the minister of marine submits that in Canada there are 

 distinct classes of harbors. Some are under the control of a commis- 

 sion appointed wholly or in part by the Government, under whose 

 management improvements are made and which regulates, subject to 

 the approval of Government, the harbor dues which are to be paid by 

 all vessels entering such ports and enjoying the advantages therein 

 provided. 



Others are natural harbors in great part unimproved, whose limits 

 are generally defined by order in council and for which a harbor-mas- 

 ter is appointed by Government, to whom all vessels entering pay cer- 

 tain nominal harbor-master's fees, which are regulated by a general 

 act of parliament, and which constitute a fund out of which the 

 harbor-master is paid a small salary for his services in maintaining 

 order within the harbor. The port of St. John, New Brunswick, is 

 entirely under municipal control and has its own stated and uniform 

 scale of charges. 



Harbor dues are paid whenever a vessel enters a port which is 

 under a commission, and harbor-master's fees are paid only twice per 

 calendar year by vessels entering ports not under a commission. 

 Sydney belongs to the first class, and at that port Captain Jacobs 

 paid the legal harbor dues. Malpeque and Port Mulgrave belong to 

 the second class, and in those Captain Jacobs paid the legal harbor- 

 master's fees, which, for a vessel like his, of from 100 to 200 tons, is 

 $1.50. That he paid only $1 in Malpeque is due to an error of the 

 harbor master, who should have charged him $1.50, and by this error 

 Captain Jacobs saved 50 cents, of which he should not complain. For 

 full information as to the legal status of Canadian harbors Mr. Bay- 

 ard is respectfully referred to the Canadian Statutes, 36 Viet., cap. 

 63; 42 Viet., cap. 30; and 38 Viet, cap. 30. 



The minister of marine and fisheries believes that after a thorough 

 perusal of these Mr. Bayard will not cite the payments made by 

 Captain Jacobs as evidences of the " irresponsible and different treat- 

 ment to which he was subjected in the several ports he visited, the 

 only common feature of which seems to have been a surly hostility." 



The minister submits that, from a careful consideration of all the 

 circumstances, he can not resist the conviction that, in this whole 



