508 
On the other hand, we have legislation on the books which provides 
that the Government will pay the difference which has completely 
failed in its objective. Since 1964 we have succeeded in building only 
31 new fishing vessels and most of those were built by people who had 
never been in the fishing business before. I don’t say most of them, but 
the major part of the money went into those. We have failed. 
Now, if your bill was passed and the fishermen of this country were 
enabled to have their fishing vessels built in Canada or Japan or some 
other country, I doubt very much whether they would take advantage 
of that because the facts are in this case that imports of foreign fish 
have so affected the market in this country that there are not enough 
profits for the fishermen it seems to me to want to replace their older 
vessels. 
I would like your comment on that. I appreciate Mr. Garmatz’ 
bringing it up. What I want to know is why. 
Senator Pru. I had a session with the fishermen in my home State 
who were very upset, as your fishermen are, Congressman, at the close- 
ness of foreign fishermen, and they were not, as you point out, particu- 
larly enthused by the idea of buying foreign vessels as my bill would 
permit when I suggested it to them, but I think that if they actually 
could buy their vessels at this reduction, you would find normal eco- 
nomic incentive would cause them to overcome their prejudice against 
buying a foreign vessel. 
Mr. Prtiy. They can buy a vessel at that very cost now and have the 
Government pay the difference. 
Senator Pern, They can, but as the Commission on Marine Science 
said, on page 97 of its report: 
Rather than remove the vessel registration limitation, Congress enacted a 
vessel construction subsidy act. But the subsidy has not achieved its objectives. 
That is somewhat along the lines of what you said : 
A provision requiring a finding that the grant of subsidy not cause economic 
hardship to others in the fishery has resulted in denial of subsidy to those parts 
of the industry most in need of aid to modernize their fleets. 
Generally speaking, if you have a free market, I think those that 
are most efficient will take advantage of it, and I think that instead of 
piling one artificial support on top of another, which is what the Ves- 
sel Subsidy Act does, to try to balance the law of 1794, if we can get 
rid of both, then those fishermen with the most chance of competition 
would buy a vessel on the free market. 
As of now they are, as you point out, very distressed. About 70 
percent of the fish: coming here is from foreign ports. I agree with 
you that the present act has not done the job. 
Mr. Pruuy. I think the members of the Commission were anything 
but knowledgeable of the fishing business as far as I know. I talked 
to a lot of people who are interested in the business, both the small 
fishermen and the large fishing people, and they haven’t even wanted 
to replace some of their older vessels with a subsidy because they didn’t 
feel that it would be profitable. We have reported out a new bill which 
would allow a subsidy for the rebuilding of older vessels, and for the 
reconstruction of vessels. 
As it has been, the millions of dollars that have been spent have 
gone to a very few new and some old fishing operators and only 31 
