Ihat statemeDt is confirmed by the report 

 of the Department of Marine and Fisheriof? 

 for this year, containing a reiJort by the 

 captain of the ' Petrel " that there is prac- 

 tically no whitefish in Lake Erie to-day. 

 I would like to ask the hon. gentleman 

 where our whitefish have gone ? It is said 

 that fthey breed in our waters, that they are 

 to be found in greater quantities on the 

 Canadian side, and yet we are told there is 

 no tvhitefish in Lake Erie to-day. The hon. 

 gentleman was oblivious of the fact that 

 this was an answer to his own contention 

 that Canadian fish remained in Canadian 

 waters. I will tell him where the w^hite- 

 flsh have gone. I will sliow by figures that 

 the American people have been catching 

 an excess in whitefish quite as great as 

 that in the other fish. As will be seen by 

 'the following table :— 



Quantity of whitefish caught on both sides of 

 Lake Erie in the following years : — 



Canada. U.S. 



Lbs. Lbs. 



1880 205,600 3,333,800 



1885 186,080 3,531,855 



1889 306,213 3,323.772 



Totals 697,893 10,189,427 



These figure* show that the American 

 catch on Lake Erie alone, in the single ar- 

 ticle of whitefish, is about 13 times greater 

 than that taken by our own fishermen. In 

 10 years, from 1880 to 1889, taking the 

 years mentioned as a basis of calculation, 

 the figures would be : Canada, 2,326,310 

 pounds ; United States, 30,631,420 pounds. 

 Value : Canada, $189,104 ; United States, 

 $2,450,530. If the Americans did not take 

 another whitefish out of Lake Erie at the 

 rate our fishermen have been permitted to 

 operate, it would require 130 years' fishing 

 on our part to catch up with the fishing on 

 the other side of the Lake for the ten 

 years 1880 to 1890. Now, T would like 

 to ask where the whitefish are, if they do 

 not cross the lake ? It is quite evident 

 from these figures that the whitefish in 

 Lake Erie have been caught by the Ame- 

 rican fishermen, and that there has not 

 been any overfishing on our side of the 

 lake. The hon. gentleman, speaking of the 

 fisheries on the other side, says : 



Ruin all round meets them and stares them in 

 the face. I have the official evidence that their 

 capital is moving west, tha^ six or seven hundred 

 thousand dollars in cold cash had been lost in the 

 fishery up to the last season, and that those re- 

 maining in the business were endeavouring to 

 save themselves from absolute ruin by moving 

 on to Lake Superior, and even further west, to 

 the Lake of the Woods. 



^vhy, Sir, there is no doubt that American 

 fishermen are moving on to Lake Superior 

 and the Lake of the Woods ; and if we go 

 iiito the figures relating to those lakes, we 

 will find, relatively, perhaps, not as great 

 a difference, yet a very great difference in 

 e\ery one of those lakes a^ against the 



Canadian catch. Now, Sir, as against this 

 opinion of the depletion of the Lake Erie 

 fisheries oa the other side, I will just read 

 a short extract from the New York " Sun " : 



In none of the other great lakes do the condi- 

 tions for fish seem to be so favourable as in Lake 

 Erie. This is due in a great measure, fish cul- 

 turists think, to the variations in the depth 

 which are peculiar to that lake. The western 

 end is shallow, and thus provides vast areas for 

 spawning grounds. The deep water at the east- 

 ern end is an almost boundless retreat for the 

 half-grown young. The line between deep and 

 shallow water seems to be drawn at Cleveland, 

 for west of that city th-? water is not more than 

 60 feet deep anywhere, and the average depth 

 will, perhaps, fall b^low 40. 



Sir, we have only to turn up the reports 

 bearing upon the fisheries of Lake Erie, to 

 find that the fisheries, even on that side of 

 the lake where this enormous fishing has 

 been going on, are not in the frightful state 

 depicted by the hon. gentlemen themselves. 

 In 1893, an Amercian fisheries commission 

 reported as follows on the condition of the 

 Lake Erie fisheries :— 



Although ranking fourth in area, this lake con- 

 tains a fishing industry of vast extent and of 

 much greater importance than that of all the 

 other lakes combined, omitting Lake Michigan, 

 which it surpasses by 36 per cent in fishing popu- 

 lation, 49 per cent in invested capital, 60 per cent 

 in the quantity of fish taken, and 17 per cent in 

 the value of the catch. Tha fisheries of Lake 

 Erie are thought to be more important than 

 those of any other body of fresh water in the 

 world, and there are few, if any, lakes which 

 have afforded such a history of prolificness of fish 

 life in proportion to their size. To illustrate the 

 relative productiveness of the American waters 

 of this lake, it may be noticed that the average 

 value of the catch per square mile of lake surface 

 is only $200, while in no other lake of this system 

 is the average more than |50, and in three of 

 them is much less. 



Thel hon. gentleman says again : 



Our American neighbours, both official and un- 

 official, have met to deplore the rapid depletion 

 of this great fishery and the decadence of this 

 great industry. They have met in both on their 

 own side of the line and on this side to take coun- 

 sel with their Canadian neighbours, having in 

 view the great and to some extent the common 

 interest. It is a notorious, and it is an exceed- 

 ingly sad fact, that that is the condition of the 

 Lake Erie fishery to-day. But there is more 

 than this, Mr. Speaker, and it is to this point that 

 1 call the particular attention, and upon this I 

 ask for the support of the House. The policy 

 that, in spite of many difficulties, difficulties that 

 it would be impossib!^ for me to exaggerate, I 

 have endeavoured to uphold, is that of insisting 

 on a rigid observance of the regulations — which I 

 believe to be ne-.cssary regulations — found in the 

 Ofcnadian Orders in Council governing Canadian 

 waters of that lake and region. While there has 

 been a diminution in the fishery, while the fish 

 have fallen off on our side, we have not yet 

 reached anything like the condition of our neigh- 

 bours. 



Let us now see how the American people 

 feel on this question, and whether they are 

 alarmed to the extent stated by the Min- 



