266 NEW ENGLAND FISHERIES 



Canadian waters. Witnesses were summoned by the score, 

 and the report of the Commission, which covers nearly 

 seven thousand pages, is made up largely of the testimony 

 of fishermen and experts in the fishing business. 1 



The contention of the American members of the Com- 

 mission that the extent of American fisheries in Canadian 

 waters was on the decline has since been verified by the 

 records of vessels that have been to the Gulf of Saint 

 Lawrence for the last twenty-five years. Whereas formerly 

 American mackerel schooners frequented the Gulf in large 

 numbers the fleet to-day visits those waters in compara- 

 tively small numbers. Our fleet visits the coast of Nova 

 Scotia for mackerel but the fishery is carried on in no en- 

 closed bay or gulf, and consequently is less under the dom- 

 inance of Canadian authorities. The average mackerel 

 fleet on the New England shore for the decade of the 

 eighties was 276 schooners and in the Gulf of Saint 

 Lawrence for the same time, 37 schooners. For the twelve 

 years ending with 1908 the mackerel fleet on our own shores 

 numbered 122 sails and the Bay fleet 7.5 sails. The per- 

 centage of the Bay fleet to the total American mackerel fleet 

 fell off from 11 per cent during the decade of the eighties to 

 about 6 per cent during the last twelve years. The catch of 

 the American fleet in the Bay during the operation of the 

 Treaty of Washington, 1873 to 1885, was about 300,000 

 barrels of mackerel, or 25,000 a year. The total catch of 

 salt mackerel in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence for the seven 

 years ending in 1908 was 3,672 barrels, an insignificant 

 amount in comparison to the prosperity of former years. 



No single phase of the mackerel fishery has occupied 

 so much discussion and been so barren in its results as the 

 southern spring mackerel fishery. The fundamental ques- 

 tion that arose for settlement was whether, the catching 



i For a more detailed account of the Halifax Commission, see Ch. 

 XIX, The Fisheries Question. 



