KING HERRING 



709 



land. This business has been conducted 

 mostly in winter, when the fishing vessels 

 were otherwise idle, when the fish were 

 schooling in the waters of the. neighbor- 

 ing provinces, when there was a scarcity 

 on our own shores, and when there was 

 a good demand for herring for use as 

 bait in the line fisheries. For this pur- 

 pose our vessel fishermen resorted to 

 various regions and engaged in the busi- 

 ness in various ways, depending on local 

 conditions, sometimes catching the her- 

 ring themselves, sometimes hiring the 

 provincials to fish for them, sometimes 

 buying outright the herring already 

 caught and awaiting a purchaser. The 

 principal localities thus visited by our 

 vessels were Passamaquoddy Bay and 

 other waters near the mouth of the Bay 

 of Fundy, the Magdalene Islands, and 

 the treaty shores of Newfoundland. At 

 present only the last-named region is con- 

 cerned in this trade. 



TROUBLES WITH NEWFOUNDLAND AND 



GREAT BRITAIN CAUSED BY THE 



HERRING FISHERIES 



Some of the most serious international 

 questions that have arisen in American 

 history have been due to the operation of 

 our herring fishermen in the waters of 

 Canada and Newfoundland. The diffi- 

 culties grew out of ambiguities in the 

 Treaty of 1818 between the United States 

 and Great Britain, and have continued, 

 with violent exacerbations, up to the 

 present moment; for the Treaty of 1818 

 has remained the chief instrument defin- 

 ing the rights of the American fishermen 

 in British North American waters, and 

 it has never been construed in a way sat- 

 isfactory to both governments. It is 

 very likely that had the controversy been 

 between the mother country and her prin- 

 cipal daughter it would have been ami- 

 cably settled many years ago ; but each of 

 the maritime provinces as well as New- 

 foundland sought to have a hand in con- 

 struing the treaty and in making 

 modifications thereof to suit local condi- 

 tions, and the result has been what would 

 naturally have been expected. Fortu- 

 nately the fishery question is now quies- 



cent over a large part of His Britannic 

 Majesty's North American coasts, and it 

 is only in his oldest colony of Newfound- 

 land that the bony herring has continued 

 to be a bone of contention. 

 - The recent history of this dispute is 

 well known. For a number of years the 

 United States government has had a rep- 

 resentative on the ground in the person 

 of an expert of the Bureau of Fisheries, 

 who has remained there during the en- 

 tire season for the threefold purpose of 

 keeping our State Department informed 

 of the condition of affairs, of advising 

 our fishermen of their treaty rights, and 

 of dissuading them from any attempt to 

 violate the proper local regulations. 

 Being in a staunch naval tug or revenue 

 cutter, this representative has also been 

 of material assistance to our fishermen 

 in pul%g out of the ice herring schoon- 

 ers tha't-have stayed too late and been 

 frozen in — a courtesy that has been ex- 

 tended jdso to vessels from the Canadian 

 provinces'! 



The efforts of the Newfoundland gov- 

 ernment to restrict and modify the rights 

 enjoyed by our fishermen under the 

 Treaty of 1818 have been the subject of 

 diplomatic correspondence between the 

 United States and Great Britain, with 

 the result that pending the settlement of 

 the matter the home government has 

 taken charge and approved a modus 

 vivendi which permits greater freedom of 

 fishery than the colonial authorities were 

 willing to accord. Happily the entire 

 controversy will soon be adjudicated by 

 arbitration at The Hague. 



VALUABLE HERRING FISHERIES ON PACIFIC 

 COAST AS YET UNDEVELOPED 



The herring fishery of the west coast 

 of the United States is of comparatively 

 minor importance but of great pros- 

 pective value. The herring abounds, but 

 the demand is limited in the regions of 

 greatest abundance. The largest fishery 

 is at Killisnoo, Alaska, where, in 1908, 

 about 25,000 barrels of herring were con- 

 verted into oil and guano. The manufac- 

 ture of these secondary products began 

 many years ago and for a long time was 



