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Michigan and also Senator McNaughton struck the key-note when they said the 
State Commissioners should control those things: I think it would be a dangerous 
precedent for the United States government to get control of the Fish Com- 
missioners along the chain of our inland lakes and the St. Lawrence River. 
Every petty office on the chain of lakes would be a political office. We would 
not only see it in our Presidential, but in our State and county elections, and it 
would be a political question, and something which ought not to exist. And I 
wish to concur in the remarks of those same gentlemen, in regard to fish food, 
We all know that the man who eats a speckled trout to-day has a luxury ; and we 
also know that while white fish were common fish a few years ago, the man who 
eats them to-day has virtually a luxury ; the labouring man, the mechanic and the 
farmer cannot get them any more easily than they can the speckled trout. And 
I think the views of these gentlemen on that point are the key-notes in that 
respect ; I fully concur on that point ; but I came here as a representative of the 
Anglers’ Association. My interest is mostly in the St. Lawrence River. We 
have in the St. Lawrence River about twenty-five miles covered by parks, hotels 
and cottages, and have $3,000,000 invested in parks, mostly by foreigners and 
strangers, that is they are foreigners to our river. What brings them there? The 
St. Lawrence River for one thing, and the fishing in the St. Lawrence River for 
another. We have thousands on the St. Lawrence River, at the Thousand Islands, 
every year who come for fishing, and we feel with the large amount of money 
that is invested there, that something ought to be done by our Legislature to pro- 
tect the fishing. We know the gentlemen that composed the Codification 
Committee. Our Chairman, General Sherman, who succeeded Governor Sey- 
mour, and Mr. Roosevelt one of the first Commissioners appointed by our State, 
and Deputy Attorney-General Whittaker made a committee we all felt pleased 
with ; and the sporting men of our State, and the frequenters of the St. 
Lawrence River were pleased with that committee and knew that we would 
get a law that would be right and satisfactory to all, and which would 
protect all our interests ; the Anglers’ Association had the privilege of meeting 
these gentlemen on the St. Lawrence River. They came there to look the matter 
over; we told them our grievances, and they said, what do you want? We 
replied, we want a prohibitory law; a law that would prohibit net fishing in the 
St. Lawrence River. And when the Codification Committee prepared new laws 
we were pleased to see that these gentlemen had recommended a prohibitory law 
on the St. Lawrence River ; but a prohibitory law on the American side does not 
protect us; we want Mr. Stewart and his Canadian colleagues to give us the 
same law on the Canadian side that we have on the American side. We hope 
they will give us a prohibitory law; that the fish on the American side will not 
go over into Canada waters and be gobbled up by the Canadian net pirates. The 
Americans will watch on our side, but the Canadians will camp on the Canadian 
islands and go over in the American waters to set their nets. We have Eel Bay 
and a number of other bays there that by nature are the natural breeding grounds. 
for fish, and the Canada netters come over and try to exterminate our fish, and 
they would exterminate them but for the Angler’s Association. We have taken 
hundreds of nets and burned them up. The Codification Committee have ren- 
dered a bill that pleases us but it has not become a law. This section was. 
amended, and that section was amended, and the result was we had no law, owing. 
to the deadlock in the Senate; we were virtually at sea again; and, as Senator. 
MeNaughton said, this Codification Committee virtually wiped out 239 Fish and 
Game laws and they have got it simplified in this bill they presented. But for 
- the unfortunate dead-lock in our Senate last winter the bill would have been a 
law now. That seems to be the opinion of the legislators of 1891 that I have 
talked with on the subject. 
HZ, (¢:) 
