64 Thirty-sere nth, Annual Meeting 



at any rate on our side, sir, in making that treaty possible, and 

 ] think the American Fisheries Society has reached that point 

 where any resolution it passes, or any policy that it recommends, 

 will receive the serious consideration, not only of your own fed- 

 eral government at Washington, but of our federal government 

 at Ottawa ; and I think that possibly if some arrangement could 

 be made whereby the resolution was neither, as it were, knocked 

 one way or the other, a great good could be done, and I do think, 

 Mr. President, that if you take any action it places you on rec- 

 ord, as it were, in upholding the theory that we can get along 

 with hatcheries alone and catch the fish on the spawning gTound, 

 if you allow that theory to get abroad, with your endorsement, it 

 will undouljtedlv do a great liarm to the fisheries of the great 

 lakes. 



One more word : I ask any of you gentlemen, who take an 

 interest in this question, to read the report of the Royal Commis- 

 sion, appointed by the Dominion government in 1892, and you 

 will find in the sworn testimony of net fishermen, many of whom 

 are alive today, that the practical destruction of the whitefish of 

 the great lakes was undoubtedly due to fishing during the spawn- 

 ing season. Gentlemen, when you attempt to make science ex- 

 clusively accomplish what nature has done up to the present, you 

 take an immense responsibility upon your shoulders. I am not 

 a scientist; I do not profess to be one. I have joined this impor- 

 tant body for the purpose of receiving an education in the sci- 

 entific end of the matter, but I say in closing, this : Do be care- 

 ful in any steps that you take not to give our friends any fur- 

 ther advantage of which they will be quick to avail themselves 

 for their own selfish and temporary benefit, to destroy food sup- 

 ply of the masses of the people. (Applause.) 



Mr. Charles E. Fryer, England, Inspector of Fisheries: Mr. 

 President and members of the American Fisheries Society, I 

 crave your indulgence as a young member. I am afraid I do 

 not look it and I am afraid I do not altogether feel it, but 1 am 

 a young member of this society — young in membership at any 

 rate, but possibly with some considerable amount of experience 

 in regard to the various policies that are adopted and suggested 

 with respect to the preservation of fish and fisheries. I had the 

 honor of beino- elected an honorarv memlxT of vour societv a 



