110 Thirty-Third Annual Meeting 
believe in having said laws made very simple and binding so that 
there shall be no misunderstanding, and after they are made have 
them strictly enforced with a penalty sufficiently heavy to effect- 
ually prohibit the probability of the same person committing the 
second offence. 
However we realize that it is a pretty hard proposition to 
enact a general law for the protection of the fishing industry of 
the Great Lakes that will not work an injustice to some one, as 
the local conditions are so varied, that the regulations which 
would be all right and just in one locality, if enforced in another 
would drive the fishermen out of business. 
But we believe that a law might be enacted and made inter- 
state and international which would work a hardship to no one, 
be just to all alike and yet be almost a perfect protection to the 
industry, and that would be to simply have a size limit, making 
the limit large enough for each variety of fish, so that every fish 
retained for market or for the table shall have had a chance to 
spawn at least once, all fish under the size mit to be returned 
to the water with the least injury possible. 
With such a law, with a heavy penalty for having undersized 
fish in one’s possession, with a fearless officer stationed in each 
port where fish are brought for sale to enforce it, so that the 
slaughter of immature fish would be effectually stopped, and the 
work of propagation still carried on to the fullest degree, we 
believe that but a short time would elapse until the effect would 
be plainly seen and the lakes again teeming with all kinds, and 
especially with this the best of all fresh water fishes. 
