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in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and in tlic vicinity of British waters. Kor the years 

 1873 and 1874, I am content to rest upon the information derived from 1 he Port 

 Mnlgravo statistics. With reference to the stihsoqiient years, IS?.*!, 187(5, and 1877, 

 there arc one or two pieces of evidence to which I oii^lit, perhaps, speciHcally to 

 refer. Your attention has already heen called to the fact that the Magdalen 

 Islands and the Hanks in the hody of the Oiilf of St. Lawrence — of which 

 Professor Hind says tiicre are many not put down on the chart, "and wherever you 

 find banks," he says, " there yon expect to find mackerel " — iiavc been the principal 

 fishiny; <jroiinds of the Unil(Ml States' vessels lor many years. The disastrous 

 results of the {jreat gale of 1873, in which a large number of United States' vessels 

 were lost, and in which more than twenty Gloucester vessels went ashore on the 

 Magdalen Islands, show where, at that time, the principal part of the mackerel 

 fleet was fishing. In IH7(», the Report of the Commissioner of Fisheries for the 

 Dominion speaks of the number of vessels tliat year found at the Magdalen Islands. 

 He savs, " .\bout one hundred foreign vessels were engaged fishing this season 

 around the Magdalen Islands, but out of that number I do nut calculate that there 

 were more than fifty engiiged in mackerel fishing, and according to the best informa- 

 tion received, their catch was very moflerate." 



We have also the statement of one of the Prince Kdward (sl.ind witnesses, 

 Cieorge Mackenzie, on page l.'JJ of the British evidence, who, after describing the 

 gradual decrease of the American fishery by vessels, .says, "There has not been for 

 seven years a good vessel mackerel fishery, and for the last two years it has been 

 growing worse and worse." lie estimates the number of the United ,*>tates' vessels 

 seen oil" the island at about fifty. We have also the testimony of Dr. Kortin on the 

 subject, who spent .i number of weeks this year, during the heiglit of the fishing 

 season, in an e\pe(hti()n after affidavits, that took liim all round the gulf, where he 

 could not have railed to sec wiialevcr American vessels were fishing there, lie says 

 lie "may have seen about twenty-live mackereling and s liling about," and that he 

 heard at the Magdalen Islands tliere were seventy. According to the best informa- 

 tion that I can obtain, tlial is not far from correct. Joseph Tierney, of Souris, 

 says that there were twenty or thirty at Georgetown, ttlteen or twenty at Souris, 

 and he shoidd think when he left home there w<>re s(>venty-live. Ronald Macdonald, 

 of Kast Point, says that he has not seen more than thirty sail this year at one time 

 together; that last year he saw as many as a dozen and perhaps fifteen or twenty 

 sail at a time. The number has diminished very much, he says, for the last five or 

 si.\ years, until this year. 



Now, gentlemen, this is the reconl of the five years during which United .States' 

 fishermen, under the provisions of the Treaty of Washington, have derived whatever 

 advantages tliey could obtain iVom the inshore flslieries. I have heard tlie 

 suggestion made tiial it woidd liave lieen better if this Commission had met in 

 I8"'J, l)ecause there nnght have then been evidence introduced with reference to the 

 whole twelve years of the Treaty of Wasliingtt)n, and I have even heard it said that 

 it would have l)een lair to eslini.ate the value of the privilege for the twelve years 

 according to the appearance ,it that time. That is to say, that it woidd have been 

 fairer to estimate liy conjecture than by proof, by anticipation than l)y actual 

 results. It seems to nte, on the contrary, gentlemen, that the fairer way would have 

 licen, either to havi; the value of this privilege reckoned up at the cmkI of each 

 fishing \ear, when it could be seen what had actually iieen «lone, or to have 

 postponeil liie determination of the ipiestion until the ex|)erience of the whole twelve 

 years, as matter of evidence, could be laid before the Con;mission. 



What shall wcr sav of the prospects of the ensuing se^'cn years ? What reason 

 is there to believe thai the business will sudderdy i)e revolutionized ; that there will 

 be a return to the cxtr.ionlinary prosperity, the great number of fish, and the 

 large catches tiiat are s.iid toiiavel)ecn drawn from the gulf twent\-live, twenty, 

 fiftei;n years ago? We were told that the time for the revolution h.ad come already, 

 when we met here, but the result proves that the jiresenl season lias fiecn one of 

 the worst for our fishermtMi. Wh.it chance cm you see that a state of things will 

 ensue that will make the privilege any more valuable for the seven years to come, 

 than it has been tor the live years alre.idy passsd .' Il.-ive you any right to assume 

 that it is to lie better without evidence? Have you any rigiil, when you arc obliged 

 to juilge of the luturc l)y the past, to go back to a remote |)ast, instead of taking 

 the experience of recent years? Would it be just for you to do so? This Commis- 

 sion, of course, does not sit here to b(> generous with th^ money of the Government 

 of the United States. I)ut simply to value in monev what the citizens of tl>e United 

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