so COMMISSION OF CONSERVATION 



when they are in the outer waters, when they are in the deep sea, and 

 the fishermen should hand over their catches to curers. They should 

 be brought in as rapidly as possible, as few hours as possible elapsing 

 between the capture and the landing, and the fish should be carefully 

 and properly graded and selected. A recognized quality or kind of salt 

 should be used, and the package or barrel should be substantial, tight 

 and well made. But, as Mr. Cowie is to deal with this subject, I need 

 say no more about that. I can only point out that we have in Canada 

 been wasting our sea-herring resources and the waste is deplorable, 

 for no country in the world possesses such a rich herring harvest as is 

 to be found in the waters of Canada. The British Columbia coast 

 abounds even more wonderfully than the Atlantic coast in herring, and 

 the use of these fish has been such that they have realized the poorest 

 price. Great quantities, of course, have been used for bait. In British 

 Columbia, the Japanese have dry-salted them and exported them to 

 markets in China, and Japan, yielding very poor returns. I regard it 

 as a criminal waste of a fine fish product. The remedy for this is to 

 enter systematically upon the proper curing and handling of herring 

 according to the methods adopted in Europe. That the herring is a 

 valuable product I need hardly say. One hardly realizes how import- 

 ant it is as a food, but Prof. Hopkins of the University of Cambridge 

 has recently pointed out that the sea herrings of the North Sea contain 

 18-6 per cent of protein and 344 per cent of fat. Fresh, lean beef 

 contains 224 per cent of protein and 4 per cent of fat, so you see how 

 well the herring compare even with fresh, lean beef. Here is a case, 

 then, where it is open to us to utilize in a better way a product that we 

 all recognize as of value. 



Various Fish whose Value is Ignored 



Tunny or ^"* there are some fish which occur on our shores 



Horse- whose value has been comparatively ignored. Many 



mac ere years ago, during an early tour as Commissioner of 



Fisheries, I called attention to the waste of the fish called the tunny or 

 tuna, sometimes called the horse-mackerel. I remember at Yarmouth, 

 Nova Scotia, in 1894, seeing a number of these fish thrown on the 

 beach rotting. These were fine specimens of the tuna, some three 

 hundred or four hundred pounds in weight. At various points on the 

 coast I saw these fish thrown away. Whpn I landed finally at Gaspe 

 the first thing that greeted me was the odour of decaying tuna on the 

 beach. No one acquainted with the fisheries, say, of the Mediterranean, 

 would believe that such a thing was possible, that a fine fish like the 



