90 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



I shall refer to those several matters, to the evidence broug-ht before 

 both tliese committees, to opinions stated and conclusions drawn, in 

 such order and connection as shall best serve my purpose, and without 

 more particular reference thereto. 



From very similar testimony, the committees in Massachusetts and 

 Rhode Island came to directly opposite conclusions. 



The Massachusetts committee reported " leave to withdraw." The 

 Ehode Island committee recommended the passage of " An act to pro- 

 hibit trap an€l heart-seining of fish in the waters of I^arragansett 

 Bay." 



In the Fifth Annual Report of the Commissioners on Inland Fisheries, 

 (Boston, 1871,) those gentlemen, in concluding their remarks ''on the 

 possible exhaustion of sea-fisheries," say, " The petition for abolishing 

 weirs, &c., ought to have brought out much valuable testimony, but it 

 proved qnite otherwise." This was true, and the criticism that followed 

 it just. 



Early in that investigation, and in order to bringiout all the valuable 

 testimony possible, the managers for the petitioners represented to the 

 committee the difficulty of procuring the attendance of witnesses ; that 

 most of those who were interested to protect the fisheries were poor or 

 of limited means, and that those who were rich, not being pecuniarily 

 interested, had contributed but little to carry on the investigation : that 

 the question was one of great public concern, and asked the committee 

 to obtain from the legislature authority to send for persons and papers, 

 which they, although expressing a determination to give the subject a 

 full and impartial hearing, refused to do. The managers therefore were 

 limited to such witnesses as would willingly attend and the means iu 

 their hands enabled them to produce. 



On the side of the remonstrants it was not so. These two investi- 

 gations became so general and looked for such stringent legislation, 

 that the opposition was aroused, and all those who were engaged in the 

 profitable bcsiness of trapping and seining fish contributed liberally to 

 defeat, and did defeat, any action on the subject. 



One witness in Ehode Island, William Spooner, testified that they 

 went so far as to threaten all those fishermen who should go before the 

 committee to testify anything against trapping. 



It is more than probable, however, Dhat limited and unsatisfactory as 

 those examinations proved, they together furnished more evidence than 

 had hitherto been procured, and brought out as many facts as are likely 

 to be obtained by anything short of congressional action on the sub- 

 ject. 



It is a matter of surprise, therefore, that so much information was 

 gained, and not that so little that was valuable was in evidence, and 

 although the " ver^ interesting contemporaneous investigation in Rhode 

 Island" went more carefully, thoroughly, and understandingly into the 

 matter, yet we find, on comparing the testimony, that what was proved 

 in the one case was, for the most part, confirmed in the other. 



The English commission, the Massachusetts commissioners, and Mr. 

 Atwood nuiy all agree " that fishermen, as a class, are exceedingly un- 

 observant of anything about fish which is not absolutely forced upon 

 them by tlieir daily avocations •," " that these witnesses do not know 

 one-half of what they ought to know 5" nevertheless this is all the tes- 

 timony we can have upon a question of vital consequence until the 

 Government devises some better means of ascertaining the truth. Mean- 

 time the evil, if it is an evil, goes on, to the prejudice of the fishermen 

 and to the [)ossible destruction of the fisheries. 



