THE SOUTHERN SPRING MACKEREL FISHERY. 
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of xiurse-seiiie iisliing, as they helieve, the luackerel fishery has become unprofitable, and that they 
■will sell out at from 25 to 50 cents on the dollar their ^'essel8 and all their equipments. They say it 
is a matter of vital interest ti> them, and that -without some legislation the mackerel fishery of the 
Northeast -will be destroyed entirely, and they -will have to go back to the <dd hook-and-line methods. 
The Senator says that what he wants is cheap food for the people. He will have high food for 
the people without some such enactment, because this matter of purse-seine fishing will cure itself 
sooner or later. The best thing for him to do is to accept the inevitable. Let these poor and miser- 
able and cheap, and I wovdd say if I ever used the word, nasty fishes of the spring go, and rely upon 
the hook and line to supply his constituents, and in the fall get fish that are worthy to eat at a cheaper 
jirico than he can get them if the present system is permitted to go on. 
Mr. Miller. The Senator has answered my question as I expected he would. It turns out that 
this bill is in the interest of the owners of a few fishing vessels, not in the interest of the seamen who 
go upon them, as the Senator from Delaware [Mr. Saulsbury] told us was disclosed in the investiga- 
tion which was had before a committee of which he was a member. 
I undertake to say, and I do not think it can be gainsaid or disproved, that this bill is desired 
simjily by a few men who stay upon the land in various towns in Maine and Massachusetts and salt 
down mackerel. They are men of capital, men of means. It is not asked for by the poor fisherman 
himself. He does not desire to be deprived of three mouths of his work in each year. It is not asked 
for by the ten million or the fifty million people who consume this food. 
As to the quality of the fish, I do not care to go into that, but I think when every Senator here 
can get a good fresh mackerel between the 1st of April and the 1st of June ho does not hesitate to eat 
it. I know I do not. I have no doubt but that the Senator from Michigan, although I know he is 
very particular in regard to his food, eats fine mackerel between the Ist of April and the 1st of June. 
But, as I said a moment ago, even if the object of this bill be what the Senator says it is, it 
effects that object only for three months. It does not stoji purse seining during nine months in the year. 
Why not? If it were true or if there were any fair probability that by the continuation of purse-seining 
all the mackerel would be driven off our coast and the whole fishery disappear and our peoi)le leave this 
food fishery entirely, it might be wise for us to piassalaw p)roviding that no mackerel should be landed 
upon our coast at any time save those taken by hook and line; but this bill does not pro\ ide anything 
of the kind. The Senator from Alichigan wants to preserve, to take care of the little fish, the weak 
fish, and the poor fish during three mouths in the year, and then he turns them loose to the mercy of 
those men whom he is representing here, the fishermen of Maine and Massachusetts, and allows them 
to go out with their purse-seines and surround the whole sea and bring them in, and they bring in 
large and small then, just as much in the mouths of .lune and July as they do in the mouths of April 
and May, do they not? I ask the chairman of the committee if that is not true ? There can be no ques- 
tion about it. This bill, then, is not consistent with itself. It does not nudertake to accomplish 
what the Senator says it is intended for. 
Mr. Palmer. The Senator asked me a question. I shall be very glad to answer it. 
They do not bring the fish in in the same shape in July and August; they are not brought in 
salted. It is a fact that the fish caught in .luly are not fit for salting. 
Mr. Dawes. I should like to ask the Senator from New York if he has not overlooked the foot 
that the fish, when they first come upon our shores in March, April, and May, are poor, small fish ; that 
they become larger and fatter after that time and more fit for the market; and that tbe object is to 
preserve the fish until they become fit for the market and not bring them in, as he has described, 60,000 
barrels at one time, and allow them to be dumped into the docks and thrown away, more tlian half of 
them, because it was impossible to consume them at any price or give them away before they were 
destroyed. Is not that the object of this bill? 
Mr. Miller. I am trying to get at the object of the bill, and we shall be able to fish it out after 
a while, even if we have to doit with a hook and line. 1 have been throwing out a purse seine and 
got nothing. The reasons were so small that they slipped through the mesh. 
Mr. Dawes. I suppose that a man who recognized the fitness of the game law in his own State 
and in every other State of the Union that prohibits the taking of game during certain mouths in the 
year in order to preserve tbe game, so that it may be tit for market in other mouths of the year, would 
be able to guess, without the benefit of a hook and line, what was the purpose of this bill. 
Mr. Miller. If there was anything of that kind in this bill I might perhaps have gue.ssed at it; 
but there is not. There is nothing in the bill that will accomplish anything which the Senator from 
Massachusetts has just stated to be the object of the bill. It will not accomplish it at all. 
