connected with his census report-excluding the 5,000 negroes and 8,000 Indians and Eskimo, those who were considered not to be native born, did not exceed 10 to 12 per cent of the whole number. That is the official report. I do not know what other points there may be in regard to which the committee may desire information; but if there is any question you wish to ask I shall be very happy indeed to answer it if I can. By Senator FRYE: INSHORE FISHERIES. Q. Did you see the returns where it had been undertaken to ascertain what proportion of the fish were taken inside the 3-mile shore line?-A. Yes. Q. Do you know what they showed?-A. They showed a very small percentage, indeed; not more than one-eighth or one-tenth of the catch in the Gulf. Q. That is, out of the whole catch in the Gulf not more than one-eighth or onetenth was taken within the 3 miles?-A. Yes. THE HEADLAND QUESTION. The question of the headlands is, of course, one that is, I think, of national importance. Our rights should be settled by the United States asserting and maintaining some position. Our fishermen have been uncertain as to their rights in many cases on account of the lack of any position having been taken by our Government with reference to their rights in those waters, and where there have been disputes our fishermen have had trouble on that account. SEIZURE OF A VESSEL AT SHELBURNE. A very short time ago a report was forwarded to the State Department through Mr. Steele, the president of the Fisheries Union, in regard to a seizure at Shelburne. I made the report for the captain, who told me that he went into Shelburne Harbor last March, and when he anchored off the quay they seized his vessel, when he had only been in twenty-four hours without reporting to the custom-house. He went in at 3 o'clock at night. The practice here in Gloucester has been that if vessels are here but twenty-four hours they are never expected to make any direct report to the custom-house; if they make a report to the boarding officer it will be sufficient, as per Customs Regulations, and in case of stress of weather it has never been considered right to force vessels to enter when putting into the outer harbor for shelter only. The customs laws of the United States are enforced upon the basis of common sense and common humanity. By Senator SAULSBURY: THE HEADLAND QUESTION. Q. Has there been any claim asserted, practically, by the British Government, which sought to exclude our people from a line drawn from headland to headland, where it was more than 3 miles from shore?-A. There never has been, except up to the time of the correspondence between Lord Aberdeen and Mr. Everett (May 10, 1845) in regard to that matter. The English Government withdrew from its first position on that question, but has never abandoned the claim. Q. My question is, whether there has been any practical attempt to exclude our fishing vessels from a line drawn from headland to headland, where such a line would be more than 3 miles from the shore?-A. Not at all, so far as I know. It has been reported in newspapers that our vessels have been excluded this year from the Bay of Chaleur. By Senator FRYE: PRICES OF FISH TO THE CONSUMER. Q. In this matter of fish, I take it that the fishermen alone deal with the wholesalers; that they sell alone to the wholesalers?-A. This shipping paper which I have brought for your inspection will show you the form in which the fishermen ship on board the vessels, and also authorize the disposal of their fish. Q. That is not the question. To whom do the fishermen sell?—A. The fish are generally sold by the owner of the vessel. Q. I mean the owner of a fishing vessel; to whom does he sell?-A. To men who are buying-wholesalers. Q. You do not get at what I am after. The dealings between the men who take the fish and the men who buy are between the owners of the fishing vessels and the wholesalers, are they not?-A. They are. Q. Do you understand that the retailer's price is affected to any extent by the wholesaler's price?-A. Of course it must be affected somewhat. In this market the retail price for codfish is 7 or 8 cents a pound when they are bought from the vessel for 2 or 3. Of course, after the fish leave the hands of the producer, the owner of the vessel, there is no question at all but that if the prices are increased at all they are increased by the cost of transportation and by the middlemen who handle the fish until they get to the hands of the consumers. Q. So far as your experience goes, has the duty affected the price to the consumer at all?-A. It has not to any extent. The whole matter of the fisheries is regulated by supply and demand; there is no question about that. The experience of almost forty or fifty years will show that. În 1831, with only about 12,000,000 inhabitants in the United States, we took with hooks about as many mackerel as we have taken any other year-383,658 barrels. The average catch for sixty years has been about 200,000 barrels yearly by the Massachusetts fleet. No man ever got rich by the actual production of fish alone. HOW THE TARIFF AFFECTS THE FISHING INTEREST. By Senator SAULSBURY: Q. If, as you say, the price depends entirely upon the supply and demand, how does the tariff question affect the interests of the fishermen at all, either as protecting them or otherwise?-A. I will tell you. A year or two ago, all at once, some 20 or 30 English vessels came into this harbor. Before their arrival fish had been selling at about $2.50 per 100 pounds; they ran the prices down to about $1.60 and $1.38 per 100 pounds, I think. It is the spasmodic influx, the bringing in at unexpected times, you may say, that affects the prices in a particular case. Then there is the want of confidence, the not knowing how, as you might say, competition is going to come and how large it is going to be; that also affects the people. If our people could have the United States for their market, without intervention from foreigners, Gloucester would send out 1,500 vessels, whereas she now has less than 500. Q. I am fully aware that prohibition would afford protection to American fishermen; but I ask whether the present tariff does afford any protection to the fishermen here, if the law of supply and demand regulates the price?-A. It does in this way, as I say: If Canada had our free markets, such a condition of things would stimulate, as it always has done, the building of vessels and retention of their people at home; while, on the contrary, if we have protection, and are assured of it, our vessels will be built here, and foreigners will come here and go fishing, and our business will increase. In other words, we will do the business instead of foreigners doing it. Canada has had five and one-half millions of dollars paid her for nothing in the last twelve years. She has had nearly six millions more remitted in duties. She has had, and is having to-day, our free markets for her ice-preserved fish, worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to her yearly. She is allowed with perfect impunity to place her own construction on treaties, to limit our rights, to seize and fine our vessels for alleged violation of the technicalities of local laws, and set at defiance the official marine documents of the United States, while our own fishermen ask only for the same tariff protection that is afforded every other producing industry in the country, and no special privileges whatever, and beg and pray they may not be slaughtered by their own Government; and this is their only plea, while their business affords the Government its only power on the ocean. Q. You mean by protection the exclusive right to use our market?-A. The exclusive right at least that the present duty and a duty on fresh fish would afford. This is a national question. It is a matter almost of self-preservation. I feel really that the United States should look to its fisheries and its coasting trade for its marine power, and that in no other way can it be sustained unless our people have that guarantee. Q. I am not considering the question as to the prohibition of foreign vessels coming here. What I desire to know is whether, in your opinion, the existing tariff upon salt fish does in fact afford any relief or protection to American fishermen?-A. I think it does. It really gives them that confidence which they actually need, and the margin of duty gives them something of an equality with the Canadian producer. BRITISH COMPETITION. Q. Does it operate at all to exclude the Canadian fish from our markets?-A. Not when the supply here is short. If the supply here is short they can afford to pay the American duties and bring in their fish. Q. But if the American supply is liberal, then you think they would not send so many?-A. The American fleet is large enough at present to regulate the price of fish. Here come two vessels into Boston Harbor, we will say-one American and the other Canadian. They have 500 barrels of mackerel each, of the same quality, taken at the same place. The American sells his mackerel at the same price as the other, at $10 per barrel, making $5,000. He takes his money and goes about his business. The foreigner has to take his $5,000 and go up to the custom-house in Boston and pay $1,000 duties. The difference between these two operations is very apparent. The British vessel, after paying duties, can not make so much as the American, and our fishing business is stimulated to that extent. The original wholesale buyer does not ask the transportation merchant $2 more for the English mackerel because the English captain paid $2 per barrel duties, neither does the transportation merchant ask the retailer nor the retailer the consumer. As long, therefore, as the American fishermen, by their own competition and the supply of fish, regulate the price, the duties will not affect the consumer; but let the American fleet disappear and our supply of fish come from Canada, she will have a monopoly, and, duties or no duties, the consumer will have to pay her price for his fish. Q. The British vessel-owner can not make so much, of course, provided the expenses of his catch are as great. But the testimony taken by us is to the effect that there is a very considerable difference in the outlay for wages, living expenses, and the like.-A. There is no question about that. Q. If that is true, might they still not afford to pay the duty and compete with us?—A. I take the ground that they can afford to pay the duties and compete with us to some extent. But if we consider the naked question of whether the price of fish is increased by the duty, I say it is not. But, taking the surrounding circumstances and considering what would come from the effect of having those duties, then I say our fishermen are going to hold their own or increase. Our fleet has been decreasing, while theirs has been increasing, under the system by which they had our free markets. On the contrary, when they did not have our free markets the figures show that their fleet decreased and ours gained. Q. Do you know whether their fleet is now increasing or decreasing, since the 1st of January last, for instance?-A. No; I could not say to-day. Q. Whether it is increasing or diminishing since the operation of the present tariff law? A. I have not at hand the Canadian statistics. Nova Scotia alone had 143 schooners built in 1883. That is a large fleet for that small province. By Senator EDMUNDS: IDENTIFICATION OF MAPS. Q. I wish you would state whether these two admiralty charts now hanging on the wall of this room are a duplication of the two charts that have been spoken of to-day by Mr. Wilcox.-A. They are. I received them from him. Q. Have you compared them heretofore, so as to know that they are substantially identical? A. Yes; I should say that they are substantially the same. They were all prepared at the same time, I think. (The two maps here referred to are filed for the use of the committee.) TESTIMONY OF WILLIAM A. WILCOX. GLOUCESTER, MASS., October 5, 1886. WILLIAM A. WILCOX Sworn and examined. By Senator EDMUNDS: Question. What is your age?-Answer. Forty-seven. Q. Where do you reside?-A. Gloucester. Q. What is your occupation?-A. I am agent of the United States Fish Commission, also manager of the American Fish Bureau. Q. How long have you been engaged in the fish business?-A. Since 1873. Q. What branches of the business have you been in since that time?-A. The same that I am in now since 1874. Q. Describe what you do.-A. It is my duty to keep a statistical record of the arrival and receipts of all vessels in Gloucester engaged in the fishing business; I have done that since I have been here, a year ago last January; also, through correspondents and agents at all other ports, from Prince Edward Island, on the extreme east, as far as Philadelphia, on the south, to ascertain the arrivals and receipts at other ports; also to ascertain all general information-where the fleets are, what they are doing, with what success they are meeting, as well as to secure all the statistics possible both here and elsewhere. Q. So that it has been your duty to get all obtainable information in connection with your position in the Fish Commission of the United States and the American Fish Bureau, as it comes to your knowledge from time to time, as to the whereabouts of fishing vessels, what they are doing, with what success they are meeting, etc.?—A. As far as possible; yes. Q. Have you kept records and made tables of this information?-A. I have. I have the name and cargo of every vessel that has arrived in Gloucester since I have been here since a year ago last January-and a daily record from all the other leading ports, as I have received them from day to day. Q. Do you compile these records so as to show the yearly returns of cargoes?-A. I compile them, so far as Gloucester is concerned, once a week, showing the arrivals from the various fishing grounds; I also compile monthly, quarterly, semiannual, and yearly statements at the close of the season. STATEMENT CALLED FOR. Senator EDMUNDS. We should be glad to have you make a tabulated statement, if you will be kind enough, at your convenient leisure, which you can send to me hereafter, unless you have it made now, of the results of these fishing operations since you began to keep this record, as to the quantity of fish taken by American vessels and by foreign vessels, the places where they were taken by American vessels, whether inshore or offshore, and the value of those fish; in short, a summarized statement of information bearing upon the points you have heard us discussing here. The WITNESS. I shall be pleased to do so. So far as my work here is concerned, since I have been here in Gloucester, everything has been reported to the United States Fish Commission at Washington. Q. How long have you lived in Gloucester?--A. Since a year ago last January. Q. Where before that?-A. In Boston. Q. What business were you in in Boston?-A. I have been in the same business since 1874. Q. Did you fit out vessels?-A. No, sir; I have only just been engaged in this business of collecting and compiling statistical and general information in regard to the fisheries. THREE-MILE LIMIT. Q. Perhaps you can tell now-you have been so long in the business of obtaining statistical information of the details of American fisheries-what proportion, in your opinion, of the mackerel caught by American fishing vessels in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and adjacent waters have been taken within 3 miles of the shore?-A. That, I couldn't say. As far as the amount of mackerel taken off the Nova Scotia and other provincial shores is concerned, it is not far from 4 per cent of the gross catch for the last five years. I have kept the accounts very closely in regard to that. MACKEREL CAUGHT IN AMERICAN AND PROVINCIAL WATERS. The gross catch from 1881 to 1885 amounts to 1,797,583 barrels of salt mackerel. Q. Where? A. Landed in the United States, caught by the New England fishing fleet from all ports, of which only 75,711 barrels were taken from the provincial waters off Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. What proportion of that was taken within the 3-mile line I could not state. Q. You have not the means of knowing?-A. Except in a general way, from conversation with fishermen. They would always say scarcely any at all, or very little. Q. Did you hear them say that before the 1st of July, 1885?-A. I have always heard them say that, as a general thing, very few fish were taken near the shore; that the water was shallow, and there was great danger of tearing the seines, and that the fish were more apt to be outside than inside. CHARTS. Q. Did you help make these charts hanging on the wall of this room, showing the fishing grounds, etc.?-A. Yes, sir. Senator EDMUNDS. One of them, containing the tables, I wish you would file with the clerk of the committee. Q. Who helped you make these charts?-A. Captain Joyce, of the steamer Novelty. Q. Has everything that has been put on there by you and Captain Joyce been put on truly and according to your best knowledge, information, and belief?-A. As far as we knew. I do not pretend to be an expert on the fishing of the provinces. I just assisted Captain Joyce. He was a practical fisherman, and he outlined it and I put in the statistics, and also assisted in making them; but Captain Joyce mainly was the expert to lay out the ground. I have never been over the ground. Q. When were these charts made?—A. Last winter; I think along about January. All the statistical portions and comparisons I made. Q. What would be the expense of getting duplicates of these charts?-A. Five or six dollars. By Senator SAULSBURY: SALT AND FRESH FISH. Q. Will your statistics show the proportion of fresh to salt fish? A. No, sir. The fresh fish I have paid very little attention to, with the exception of fresh halibut for the last year and a half, since I have been here, and I have no statistics of fresh fish at all that are complete. I have paid attention only to salt and dried fish. Senator EDMUNDS. Later on we will examine Mr. Earll at Washington. He belongs to the Fish Commission. He will furnish statistics for us. By Senator FRYE: Q. I understood you to say that these minutes on one of these charts were taken from statistics.-A. Yes, sir. MACKEREL CATCH FOR 1885. Q. Is the statement correct immediately below these words: "Mackerel catch by the United States vessels for the season of 1885?"-A. That is correct, so far as I know. Senator FRYE. That statement is as follows: Amount of mackerel taken within three miles of the provincial shores.. Barrels. 6,564 26, 633 378,515 405, 148 Q. That was during the continuance of the treaty and the restoration of it by Mr. Bayard? A. Yes; in 1885. This also includes the total catch of fresh mackerel for the season. That is made up from the returns by the captains of vessels at the close of the season. OCTOBER CENTURY ARTICLE IN REGARD TO GLOUCESTER FISHERIES. Q. Who is Captain Collins?-A. Capt. J. W. Collins is at present employed by the United States Fish Commission. He is captain of the Fish Commission schooner Grampus. Q. What is his special business?-A. He is subject to the orders of Professor Baird. Q. Engaged in the fishery business all the time and gathering statistics?-A. Sometimes he is in Washington, engaged there, and sometimes at sea-wherever he is ordered by the United States Fish Commission. Q. Did you read the article in the Century written by him?—A. I did. Q. What number of the Century?-A. October, 1886. Q. Did you examine the article carefully?-A. I did not. I glanced over it very hurriedly coming down on the train from Boston. Q. Do the statements contained therein agree with the knowledge you possess, so far as you have investigated?—A. From glancing over it hurriedly, I should say they do. Q. It is a pretty important statement of facts, is it not?-A. Yes; I consider it so. Senator FRYE. Mr. Chairman, I move that the chairman of the subcommittee be requested to communicate with Captain Collins and have him verify the article contained in the October number of the Century on this question, and that after being verified it be admitted as evidence before the committee. Senator EDMUNDS. If there is no objection, an order of that kind may be entered on the minutes. TESTIMONY OF BENJAMIN H. SPINNEY. BENJAMIN H. SPINNEY sworn and examined. By Senator EDMUNDS: GLOUCESTER, MASS., October 5, 1886. Q. What is your age?-A. I will be 29 next December. |