PROPAGATION AND PROTECTION OF THE RHINE SALMON. 827 



Methinks the treaty, which is based on sound principles, has, taken as a whole, 

 worked well. If nevertheless on several occasions complaints have been heard 

 on its efficacy, we must not forget that those who find fault with it most were 

 from the beginning too optimistic in their expectations. After all, human 

 nature is not changed by an international treaty, and the nature of fishermen is 

 as human as that of other people. Those who are interested in the fisheries of 

 the middle and upper river claimed, when the treaty was being closed, a greater 

 part of the ascending fish, and through the treaty's influence they have no doubt 

 received that. What is more natural than that they might go further still in the 

 same direction and should like to receive a greater share still in the future? 

 Those, who fish in the lower parts of the river, and by the treaty are compelled 

 to spare more of the ascending fish than they were accustomed to do before, com- 

 plain that the richness of the river in salmon has not augmented since the treaty 

 was closed. They say, "We did not close the treaty only for giving a good 

 deal of the fish we can catch ourselves to our neighbors of the middle and upper 

 regions, but we did so that the spawning region might be better stocked with 

 breeders. If all the fish, or too many of them, we spare are caught higher up 

 the river, what good can come of our savings?" No wonder that they ask for 

 measures better to protect the spawning fish. 



I think, however, that it would be hardly interesting and by no means 

 amusing for you to hear me discuss this question any longer or to go over the 

 different articles of the treaty with you. To understand their meaning, a good 

 deal of technical information regarding the natural condition of the river and 

 its different parts would be necessary, and I should spare you such details. I 

 think it will be more interesting for you to hear something about the actual 

 condition of the salmon fishing of the Rhine. 



IMPORTANCE OF THE FISHERY. 



I need hardly point out to you, who know about the fisheries of your own 

 country, that it is very hard work for a big and precious fish like the salmon to 

 maintain itself in a river like the Rhine, flowing through one of the most popu- 

 lated and flourishing parts of Europe, where all the circumstances seem to 

 cooperate to destroy it and to prohibit its propagation. It is not only the 

 direct influence of man, whose highly developed fishing industry is disastrous 

 after all, that our fish has to reckon with. Indirectly, regardless of the fisheries, 

 man, by normalization and regulation of the river and its affluents, did what 

 he could to spoil and at several places to close the river for the ascent of the 

 future spawning fish. Man moreover polluted the river with the sewage of 

 his towns and with the poisonous waters of his manufactories, his mines, etc. 

 And man, finally, by developing the river navigation, by using the water for 



