Government Inspection and Branding of Fish 



BY 



J. J. CowiE 

 Of the Department of the Naval Service, Ottawa 



MR. CHAIRMAN and Gentlemen: As the Committee desires to 

 emphasize the economic side of that portion of the programme 

 devoted to fisheries subjects, and having been invited to address you 

 on, the question of curing, grading, branding and preparing fish for 

 market, I propose to tell you something respecting the Act* which came 

 into operation in the course of this year and which provides for the 

 inspection and branding of fish sudi as are cured in pickle and packed 

 and marketed in tight barrels. 



„. , , , ^ , While the fresh-fish and smoked-fish business of 



Pickled-fish ^ , , , . , ■ , , , 



Industry not Canada has grown greatly m recent years, the pickled- 

 Improving flsjj industry, particularly the herring and mackerel 

 branches of it, has gone from bad to worse. This condition is not due 

 to the salt-fish business being shouldered out of existence on the coast 

 by the growing fresh-fish business. On the contrary, there are many 

 parts of our coast that are so far removed from easy and quick trans- 

 portation facilities, that the people there must necessarily continue to 

 preserve their fish by salting, drying, or some such means. Neither 

 is this condition due to any lack of demand for fish such as mackerel 

 and herring in a salted condition, for, notwithstanding that the importa- 

 tion from Canada has not held its own in the United States, our prin- 

 cipal market, that from Europe has rapidly increased. 



GoodOualit Again, the lessening importation from Canada is not 

 and Abundance due to any decrease in the abundance of these fish, 

 of Canadian especially of herring, in our waters; neither is it due 



to inferiority in the quality of the raw material. Only 

 the other day one of the largest importers of salt mackerel in the 

 United States told me that the quality of our fall mackerel, especially 

 those taken around the Magdalen islands. Prince Edward Island and 



*The Fish Inspection Act, 4-5 George V, chap. 45. See Appendix IV. 



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