242 
BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 
that for auy one of the fifty years previous. Quite likely the quantity of No. 1 mackerel taken may 
he less proportionately, hecause by purse seiniug all the fish are taken, large and small; hut wheu 
these enormous percentages were given hy the Senator from Massachusetts, showing that 50 or 60 per 
cent of the catch was No. 1, you will find if you go over the tables that in those days when there was 
no fishing except with hook and lino the number of barrels taken was a mere bagatelle in comparison 
to the number taken at present. 
In 1809 tliere were only 8,000 barrels taken. In 1814, when we were not permitted to go upon 
the high seas hecause a foreign power kept us off, we took 1,300 barrels; iu 1819, only 4,300; in 1839, 
only 74,000 barrels; and so on down. But, as I have shown, in the year 1884 we took 283,000 barrels, 
or rather that amount was inspected in Massachusetts alone, and last year the amount was 215,000. 
The Senator from Delaware [Mr. Gray] has been kind enough to suggest that I am opposing this 
hill in the interest of the fishmongers of New York City and other Atlantic coast cities. Well, Mr. 
I’residont, I accept that designation. The Senator in his tone of voice and his manner undertakes to 
imply that flshmongering or selling fish to the people of this country to eat is not a very rei)utahlo 
business. I do not hesitate to stand here and represent those men, and represent all their customers, 
which means all the people of this country who eat fish and who can not afford to buy No. 1 mackerel, 
'that is what I stand here for. 
Then the Senator asks us to make an experiment for five years; to stop this fishing for three 
months iu the year, for five years, for fear that something may happen. Why, the last day may come 
before that time, and this whole earth may ho rolled away, for aught I kuow. Many of us have no 
interest in who shall eat fish five years from now. 
I undertake to say that in this testimony and iu the testimony of the highest scientific authorities 
iu the world there is not a scintilla of jiroof to show that man, hy all his appliances in modern fishing, 
has done anything whatever to diminish the supply of fish iu the sea. Why, then, shut our people 
out from the seas? Here is this food, free to us all. Thousands, four, five, six, or ten thousand men 
are engaged iu this industry, and they are bringing food to our jteople and supplying their wants. 
Because we find that the interest paid upon the investment iu the ships and the interest paid to the 
fish houses iu Massachusetts and Maine iu packing salt mackerel was larger when the catch was only 
50,000 barrels than it is when the catch is 280,000 barrels per year, are we to say to our people, “You 
shall not have 280,000 barrels of mackerel ; you shall only have 50,000 barrels, and you shall not eat 
anything hut No. 1 mackerel?” Are we here to legislate iu that way? 
Mr. President, there is no similarity between this proposed law and the game laws which we 
j>ass in our several States to control the taking of fish in our inland waters. We all know that iu 
our interior small lakes and rivers it is possible for our large population, if not controlled hy law, to 
take out all the fish that may he found in a certain stream, or pond, or lake; hut here we have the 
testimony, as I said before, of the be.st scientific authority in the world, saying that up to the present 
time man has done nothing to diminish the number of fish iu the sea. 
But the Senator from Michigan and the Senator from Delaware, who are doubtless very fond of 
good fish upon their tables, have a fear that if we do not stop this purse-seine fishing for three months 
iu the year all the good fish will disappear. Without any testimony, without any proof from any 
ro2)utahle source whatever that that will ho the eflect, we are asked to shut ui> the Atlantic Ocean, to 
say to our people that they shall not catch fish there, or if they do catch fish there that they shall not 
bring them to our shores. 
Mr. President, I thank the Lord that I am not a constitutional lawyer. I am not disjjosed to go 
into the constitutional question and to consider whether we have the power to do this thiug or not. 
I am surprised to find that any of our free-trade friends on the other side of the Chamber are willing 
to go beyond the men on this side in shutting up our ports to anything. You can catch all the 
mackerel you choose to catch offshore with a hook aud line; that is a home industry; but if you go 
outside the shore, if you go out into the ojien sea, and take fish during three months iu the year, you 
shall not land them here at all ! Would not Senators be satisfied with a duty of 50 or 100 per cent on 
fish caught beyond the shore line during those three months? Would they go so far as to make 
l)rotection absolute by making it prohibition? 
Mr. Palmer. Does the Senator mean to convey the idea that fish caught with a hook and line 
outside of the three-mile limit can not, under this bill, he brought into the country? The Senator 
seems to be confused on that. I wish he would read the bill over in the next interval he has. 
Mr. Miller. I have read it so many times that I really do not want to do it again and take 
uj) the time of the Senate, but if that is what the Senator from Michigan means, if this is for the 
