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the fishermen find it easier to secure the enactment of 
laws favorable to fishing than it is to meet harsh 
measures in court, and be compelled to defend them- 
selves against unwise laws which have been made. Of 
course they do, if that is possible, and so would 
anyone. 
Now, underlying all this question is the claim that 
sea fish are growing scarce. I have had an experience 
in sea fisheries going back to 1849. 1 know something 
of them from actual observation, and am prepared to 
say that there have been fluctuations in the abundance 
of many species of our fishes since the beginning of the 
history of this country. This cannot be controverted. 
Take the mackerel. for instance. In 1671—more than 
220 years ago—the General Court of Massachusetts 
passed a law restricting the mackerel fishery, because it 
was felt there was danger of extermination of the species. 
You can put your own estimate on this. But it is well 
known that the entire catch of New England at that 
time did not amount to so much as one vessel might 
take now in a single prosperous season. Since the 
beginning of the mackerel fishery, as an important 
commercial industry in the early part of this century, 
there have been as great fluctuations of abundance as 
have ever been known to occur in the history of this 
fish. In 1831 the ocean off the New England coast 
was filled with mackerel, and the catch was very great. 
At that time fishing for mackerel was carried on almost 
exclusively with hook and line. A few drag seines and 
gill nets were used along the coast, but the catch in 
these was unimportant. [here were no purse-seines 
then in use for catching mackerel. Nevertheless, 
mackerel began to decline in abundance immediately 
after this great yield, and in 1841 the catch amounted 
to only a little more than 50,000 barrels as against 
about 400,000 barrels ten years previously. They 
reached low water in abundance in 1841. Then the 
