lo Mr. y. G. Bonrinot on Canada'' s Marine and Fisheries. 



Tho value of all thf fish caught in British North America waters mav 

 be pstiniated as follows : — 



Bv B. N. Am erica . . , . $16,000,000 

 Bv United States .... 8.000,000 

 By France 3,000,000 



Total $27,000,000 



British Columbia, as yet, prosecutes the fisheries to an extent worth 

 mentioninf^, but she possesses great quantities of salmon, and is within 

 easy reach of the valuable whale and cod fisheries of the North Pacific. At 

 the present time California has some thirty vessels engaged in the cod- 

 fishery, principally in the vicinity of the Chamagouin and Fox Islands. 

 British Columbia also sends several small schooners to the Russian coast, 

 where there are numerous cod- banks. Of late years the number of American 

 whalers that resort to the northern waters has been steadily decreasing — 

 from 278 in 1852 to some 80 or 90 at the present time — and the whales are 

 consequently becoming tamer and increasing in numbers ; and perhaps 

 when the Canadian Pacific Railway is completed, and population and 

 capital have at last found their way into that distant province on the 

 Pacific coast, it will engage energetically in the whale and cod fisheries, and 

 help to swell the aggregate of the product of the Dominion. 



In the men that sail the fishing-fleets of Canada, we see the elements of a 

 very powerful marine, which will be found invaluable in times of national 

 danger. For should ever a national emergency demand the services of this 

 cla.«s, they will prove as useful auxiliaries as ever were the fishermen of New 

 England, who first captured the most formidable French fortress on this 

 continent, or as ever were their descendants who, a century later, again 

 rallied to ^^e public defence, and manned the navies of the Republic. It 

 may be eslimated that the total strength which the fisheries employ through- 

 out all British North America is composed of some 75,000 men. 



On the energetic prosecution of the rich fisheries of this continent rests 

 the very foundation of our national strength in the future. It would, 

 indeed, say little for our energy or industry were we to allow ourselves to 

 be beaten by foreigners in the competition in our own waters, but the 

 figures we have just read prove conclusively that we have made more rapid 

 progress in the devoilopment of this source of wealth than any other country 

 in the world, and now stand the foremost in the prosecution of the sea 

 fisheries — the aggregate of the product of British North America now ex- 

 cee<iing that of Great Britain, or France, or the United States, or Norway, 

 or Holland, which have always devoted a large amount of labour and 

 capital to the development of thia branch of industry. 



No doubt if Canada could enjoy the exclusive use of the fisheries she 

 would soon control the fish market of the world, and make immense addi- 

 tions to her wealth in the course of a few years, but such a contingency is 

 very improbable in view of England's conciliatory and yielding policj' 

 towards our American neighbours. We have never refused to the Ameri- 

 cans the right of fishing in our waters when they have consented to deal 



