244 
BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 
Mr. Miller. I have made no r;ppeal to the selfish interests of the people of Virginia or the 
Carolinas. There is nothing in niy remarks that warrants the Senator from Delaware in making any 
such statement here. I do not propose to lot that statement go nnchalleugod. 
Mr. Hale. Mr. President, I can see that when a hill of this kind is presented, which apparently 
interferes with what has boon a recognized liberty for years, fishing in the broad Atlantic, Senators 
may hesitate in giving it their support unless clear and indisputable reasons are submitted for the 
passage of the bill. 
It is not right that it should be presented to the Senate as a bill in the interest of a monopoly 
and that the opposition to the bill is in the interest of the great public. Precisely the reverse is 
true. This bill seeks to perpetuate for the people of the United States a great food supply, not for 
two or three mouths, but for the entire year. For years the supply of mackerel to the people of the 
United States, consumed upon their tables throughout the land, has been a considerable part of the 
everyday consumption of the people. It does not rest with the consumption in March and April and 
May, but it is a product that is found upon the tables of the people all through the year, and the 
greater part of the product and the desirable part is the great catch late in the year. 
The Senator from New York says that this is a New England measure; that it is simply to help a 
few Yankee fishermen. Why, sir, the bill was reported in the other House from the Committee on 
Ways and Means that has but a single member from New. England upon it. It was championed there 
and explained by a member from the State of Arkansas, a member of the illustrious Breckinridge 
family of Kentucky, who went over the whole provisions of the bill, showing clearly that it was a 
measure so much in the interest of the people that the House passed it overwhelmingly. It is reported 
here in this body from a committee that has but one member from New England upon it, the chairman 
living in Michigan, having no interest whatever in these fisheries. 
And, Mr. President, this bill is not opposed by, and the Senator from Now York in his opposition 
docs not represent, a fisherman in the United States. There is not a fisherman on the coast of North 
Carolina, or New Jersey, or Virginia, or Maryland, or New York, or Delaware who opposes this bill. 
The bill has scrupulously guarded the interests of ov^ery fisherman everywhere. There is not a man 
who goes out from the coasts of the Southern States fishing for these fish, as ho has done for years in 
his boats, or with traps, or with seines, that is not allowed to go on and do as he has done in the past. 
There is not a man along the coast of the Middle States that is touched; but his rights .are, on the 
contrary, preserved; nor is there a man in New York or anywhere else alfected. The only men — and 
that has not appeared in the discussion yet except as alluded to by the Senator from Delaware — the 
only men who are restricted in this case are the New England fishermen who go from Massachusetts 
and Maine. 
Why, sir, every one of these fish that are caught in the months of M.arch, April, and e.arly May 
and landed, dumped in quantities that can not be consumed into the markets of New York, is caught 
by these s.ame New England fishermen. The same vessels that are engaged and the same men that 
catch these fish, taken when they are good to supply the great markets of the country, are the vessels 
and the men that catch those fish in March and April and May and land them in New York. It is only 
a restriction uiion these men that this bill imposes, and that restriction is imposed upon them because 
it has been found that their manner of fishing in these months destroys the great good of the mackerel 
fishery, which is in August, September, October, and November. 
Scientific men (as Huxley has discovered, as Professor Baird has discovered, as Professor Collins, 
who Professor Baird says is the most expert man in all these subjects, has discovered) may discuss .as 
to what the habits of the m.ackerel may be and their migration, and what effect the coming upon 
them in spawning time may have, and they may disagree ; but one patent fact is that with the immense 
demand for mackerel, ten times as great as it was fifteen ye.ars ago, with the appliances for catching 
by purse-seines, so that they can catch a thousand where they formerly caught ten, still there is not 
an increase commensurate with these facilities and with this demand; and all wo have been able to 
do is to barely keep up the supply, or in some abnormal year perhaps increase it. But oue fact is 
plain, and that is, where you take these schools of fish at a time just before the spawning season and 
you let this fleet of New England fishermen drive into them, as they do, with their purse-seines, 
landing them by thousands and tens of thousands, whether you diminish the quantity perceptibly or 
not, you do disturb the migration of the fish; you drive them into the outer waters; you drive them, 
as Professor Collins (who is indorsed by Professor Baird as the most exj)ert man on all these subjects) 
says, undoubtedly into other feeding-grounds, and the result is that when you come to the good part 
of the mackerel fishery in which the people of the United States are interested, not the Maine and 
