INSPECTION AND BRANDING OF FISH 69 



Mr. Whitb: To what extent has The Fish Inspection Act been 

 taken advantage of so far? 



Mr. CowiE: Beyond what I have said, that a number of barrels 

 have been put on the market I could not tell you. Of course the season 

 is not yet finished and the Minister would want to have all that infor- 

 mation in his hands first before I could give it out.* Several hundred 

 barrels are on the market this year. The Act has only been in opera- 

 tion since the month of May. 



Dr. Murray: Mr. S. Y. Wilson, a large fish dealer of Halifax, 

 spoke about the dilatoriness of the fish packers of Nova Scotia in 

 taking advantage of this Inspection Act and having their goods prop- 

 erly inspected and branded. Of course, he said, it was not a com- 

 pulsory thing, and apparently they were very shy about doing it. Yet 

 they seemed to feel that they were not putting up the fish in a proper 

 manner. In line with what both Prof. Prince and Mr. Cowie have said 

 with regard to difference in prices obtained for Scotch herring and 

 that obtained by our Nova Scotia dealers, he mentioned an incident 

 that occurred in Nova Scotia last summer. A dealer in Guysborough 

 county had employed a Scotchman who was well acquainted with the 

 Scotch fish industry. The dealer proposed to pack his herring in the 

 old-fashioned Nova Scotia style, but was persuaded by his employee 

 to adopt the Scotch method. He got proper barrels after the good 

 Scotch fashion and put up the fish in the regular Scotch way, with the 

 result that he has sold some six hundred barrels to a Chicago firm for 

 $11 a barrel f.o.b. Nova Scotia. At the same time, herring put up in 

 the old way were selling from $4 to $4.50 a barrel. I understand that 

 Mr. Wilson himself proposes to put up some two thousand barrels 

 next summer in the modern way. 



Mr. CowiE: In that connection I might say to Dr. Murray that 

 this firm at Goldboro, in Guysborough county, who took up this mat- 

 ter of curing last summer, really thought of it in the preceding autumn 

 when I was going around the coast. They then appealed to me to find 

 someone capable of taking hold of this part of their business. I secured 

 this man for them and told them what they should do. 



Dr. Murray: The result seems to have been very satisfactory. 



*On March IS, 1916, Hon. J. D. Hazen stated in the House of Commons 

 that, during the year 1915, the number of barrels of pickled fish inspected by the 

 Government officers was 1,328, and the number branded 1,211. The distribu- 

 tion of these was as follows: St. John, N.B., district, 899 inspected and 

 branded; Miramichi and Caraquet district, 319 inspected, 302 branded; Halifax 

 district, 10 inspected and branded; Prince Edward Island district, 100 inspected, 

 none branded. — See Hansard, March IS, 1916, p. 18S6. 



