480 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF FISHERIES. 
schooner of about 7 tons burden was fitted up with a gasoline engine. 
Wells were built into the fore and aft holds of the vessel, and in these 
the fish were to be kept alive until the selling port should be reached. 
A fishing station had been established at Kaunakakai, on Molokai, and 
seine, gill net, and line crews were to go from there to the fishing 
banks near by, returning to the station when necessary with their 
catch, which would be retained alive in a fish pond until the schooner 
arrived. The first trip to Honolulu was on March 26th, and it was 
the intention to make about two trips a week after the enterprise was 
well started. 
The Inter-Island Live Fish and Cold Storage Company, of Honolulu, 
formed in the spring of 1904, in addition to its comprehensive market 
scheme for Honolulu, proposes to embark in the deep-sea fishing. The 
small steamer 7a/ula has been fitted up with wells for carrying the 
fish alive, and her motive power has been changed from steam to 
gasoline. It is the intention to use her in collecting fish from the fish- 
ermen on the Koolau side of the island of Oahu, from Kahana to Wai- 
manalo, and this will prove a great boon to the fisheries of that section, 
for heretofore it has been impossible to reach a market except by a 
difficult 15-mile wagon trip across the island to Honolulu. The com- 
pany has also the gasoline schooner Grothers, which was built in 1902, 
and has fitted her with wells and for use in transporting live fish from 
fishing stations to be established on Molokai, Maui, Lanai, and Kahoo- 
lawe, to Honolulu, the expectation being to make about three trips a 
week. Both vessels will carry ice for refrigerating purposes, and such 
fish as can not be kept alive will be placed in cold storage until marketed. 
Feeling against the Japanese fish dealers and fishermen has been 
developing rapidly during the last few years. It is charged that native 
fishermen have been driven out of business by Japanese control of the 
fish markets and the refusal of the monopolists to pay the natives as 
much as they pay their own countrymen for their catch. Also that by 
securing a practical monopoly on certain islands the Japanese have been 
able to raise the price to the consumer and otherwise to regulate the 
markets to his disadvantage. The dealers at Hilo and Lahaina are 
specifically charged with these offenses, while those of Honolulu are 
thought to be rapidly advancing toward the same methods. The 
present investigation would seem to sustain these charges. The Japa- 
nese dealers, and also the Japanese fishermen, have mutual associations 
at Hilo, Lahaina, and Honolulu, and possibly at other places, and all 
their business affairs are managed through the officers of these associ- 
ations. As the Japanese form almost one-half of the total population 
of the islands and are the principal consumers of fish, every effort is 
made by these associations to secure and hold the trade of their own 
people, and it has been charged that they even resort to the ostracism 
of a countryman who buys from an outside dealer or fisherman when 
