THE SOUTHERN SPRING MACKEREL FISHERY. 
243 
lirotectiou of a Lome industry against a foreign article, if he jmts it ou that basis, perhaps I might 
support the hill. I am trying to find some proper ground on which we can support the measure. I 
am surprised that the Senator from Delaware should support a measure which will absolutely close 
our ports to one of the chief products of the world in the way of food. 
Mr. Gray. I am in favor of cheap food, whether it he lish from the sea or other food product, 
and I think I have made my position clear enough, perhaps, if my position is of any importance at all, 
that my advocacy of this hill and my reason for voting for it is that a cheap food product may he 
conserved for all the people of this country. I may he mistaken in the mode which I believe now 
will ho efficient to that end, and the committee may he mistaken; hut the committee has presented to 
the Senate this House bill Avith the evidence which has been taken in support of it, and asked the 
Senate to read that evidence and to take that hill, and for a period of live years to make the experi- 
ment whether we can not, in the interest of the mass of the people of this country, preserve for them 
a food iiroduct Avhich we have reason to think is rapidly diminishing in (piantity and being degraded 
in ipiality. 
Mr. George. Has there been any proof in the case that there is a sensible decline in the 8Ui>ply 
of mackerel ? 
Mr. Gray. I think so. I think the evidence taken before the committee tended to show most 
unmistakably that there was a very serioinl decline in the quantity of mackerel taken when you 
consider the improved appliances now used for catching the lish and, what was more important, and 
has already been insisted on by the chairman of the committee, I think with great force, that the 
degradation in quality has been more serious still, and though the number of fish taken may not he 
so very much less now than it Avas some years ago, yet if you take them pound for pound instead of 
])er capita the diminution in quantity will prove very great. 
I do not Avish to occupy the attention of the Senate again, except tc say, what perhaps is plain 
enough, that, so far as the fishmongers of Neiv York or of any other part of the country are concerned, 
I tliiiik their employment is quite as respectable as that of tlie Senator from NeAV York or of myself. 
Anything that I said had nothing to do with the respectability of that calling. I merely contrasted 
the smallness of their interest in this question Avith the magnitude of the interest of the great 
consuming masses of the country, and that Avas all that I intended to say, and all that I think I did say. 
I Avish to say one other thing, because it interests the people of my OAvn State, and I think inter- 
ests the people of the States from Carolina up to the southern line of Massachusetts. The interests 
or prejudices, or whatever you may choose to call them, of the Senators from those States have been 
appealed to because the close season that is proposed by this hill is about the time that the fish are 
found upon the coast from Carolina up to the southern lino of Massachusetts. That is about true, 
but it should he recollected that the boats and the men Avho take those fish are, after all, the same 
"Yankee fishermen ” thatthe Senator from Noav York speaks about. Those great lleets from Gloucester 
and from Maine sail down the coast in the beginning of the spring to meet these fish off the coast 
of North Carolina, and follow them all the Avay iij) to Massachusetts. So that the fishermen who 
are principally interested are these same “Yankee lishernien,” and it is they whom this hill will 
principally restrain, because there is an amendment in this hill, as brought from the committee, 
Avhich provides that its restrictions shall not apply to mackerel taken by hook and line in boats of 
any size in the old-fashioned way. 
Mr. George. I desire to ask the Senator another question. Is the Senator to he understood as 
admitting that this practically prohibits fishing at any time in any waters for mackerel? 
Mr. Gray. I am not able to say, in ansAver to the question of the Senator from Mississippi, Avhether 
it entirely prohibits it or not, or Avhether at any other time in the year those fish are on that coast. 
I am inclined to think that is true, so far as mackerel are concerned. But what I do mean to say is 
that the mackerel catch is made in those months Avhen they are on these southern coasts by the very 
same fishermen that make them in the other seasons of the year. I mean fishermen from Maine and 
Massachusetts. 
So, Mr. President, the jieople and the fishermen who are particularly affected by this bill are 
those Avho live in New England and not those who live upon what we may call our southern coast, 
for they are fairly protected, as I said, hy the amendment of the committee Avhich alloAvs the catch- 
ing of mackerel hy hook and line in boats of any size. 
I therefore think that all appeals made by the Senator from New York to the interests, the 
supposed seKish interests, of the States of North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, and New 
.Jersey fall to the ground as utterly Avithout foundation. 
