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size, but you know how a gill net is made, probably, and if the fish of the pro- 
hibited size gets into the gill net he is caught and he is dead, and when he is. 
dead he might as well be used as thrown back into the water. So with your 
pound net; if the size of the mesh at the back of the trap is small 
enough so that he does not escape, he is captured. The advantage of 
the gill net over the pound net is that the pound net preserves the fish 
alive until they get into the boat, and those taken by the gill net are dead 
anyway and might as well be used. The thing we need in Michigan is 
not so much laws to protect fish, as it is a proper enforcement of the laws we 
already have. Of course we are a large fishing State and the capital invested 
there is very large. The people interested in fishing and the communities 
interested in fishing are large and extensive. We have had a long struggle there 
to satisfy these practical fishernmen—many of them who are, or were at least, in 
the early days somewhat ignorant and illiterate people. At the present time the 
fishing interests are being largely centered in large concerns who employ the 
smaller fishermen to fish for them. We have found great difficulty in getting 
the people to believe in the efficacy of planting fisb. We have now, after several 
years, got them educated. The day has come when we have no difficulty in go- 
ing to the legislature for and getting any reasonable amount. We ask for pro- 
tection of tish, and we find it has helped us in that line, that we have divorced 
the protective and prohibitive administration of the law from the propagation. 
We intend to especially give our attention to the propagation and distribution of 
the fry. We have this to contend with. We have passed a law appointing a Fish and 
Game warden, and authorizing the game warden to appoint deputies, the deputies 
to be paid as the supervisors shall approve ; the difficulty is, you get into a county 
where the supervisors are not fishermen. What sort of a salary do you think the 
game warden would get there for fighting the interests of the fishermen? And 
they have their political influence, and the result is, in the parts of the country 
where the law should be most rigidly enforced, the feeling is more against it on 
account of the fishing interests there, and by reason of the law being put in the 
hands of political tools of the supervisors, Power for protecting the fishing inter- 
ests should be put into the hands of the State officer, who should employ deputies 
who should be paid by the State, and should not be residents of the locality 
where the law is to be enforced, as such deputies would not be affected by a desire 
to shield their neighbours. 5 
Now upon the general question which I say I feel much more interested in, | 
—although all questions suggested here are of much interest to us,—the question 
which has stirred us up more than anything else proposed in your proceedings 
was the proposition practically to turn over the fisheries of the great lakes to 
the United States Government. Our Commission at its last meeting, taking into 
consideration the letter which was addressed to Dr. Parker of our Board, passed 
unanimously a resolution deprecating any such idea, which resolution I hope at 
a later time to present to this Board and to be heard further upon. Permit 
me to say here, in advance, that the line which seems to be proposed by that. 
movement is directly opposed to the line which the Canadian Commission 
seems, as Mr. Stewart says, now to be seeking to carry out. Instead of 
centralising the matter in the Dominion Government, they are seeking there 
to have the Provinces have it. Now the situation to-day in this country is, as 
I understand it—and I was a little surprised at the letter of Mr. Dunning in con- 
nection with it—the situation to-day, as I understand it, is that Congress and 
the United States Government have no control whatever over the fishing 
interests of these great lakes ; the whole subject is in the hands of the separate 
states. Congress cannot control it if it would. I desire to have considerable to 
say upon that subject. 
