throughout the year, he boarding himself?-A. We pay $60 a month to some and $50 to others, for ordinary labor on the wharf. The fisherman, I suppose, lives on board his vessel about two-thirds of the year, and at home during the other third. Q. And he has to support his family on $300?—A. Yes. Q. So that actually these fishermen imperil their lives and get less than they could obtain for their labor elsewhere?-A. Certainly. Q. Has it not been always so ?-A. Yes; this business attracts the adventurous, who begin it early in life and find it hard to change, and to some extent those who are wild and fond of excitement. Q. But is it as profitable a business to the fisherman as would be ordinary work at home?-A. No; most of our crews are formed of young men; with two-thirds this is the case. Q. You say you never knew a man who retired from the fishing business in Gloucester worth $50,000?—A. No, I never did. Q. I suppose that to-day Andrew Leighton is worth that?-A. He has not retired, and he is losing it fast. If he keeps at the business two or three years more he will have nothing to lose. Q. You cannot get out of the fishing business?-A. You cannot sel! your property when you want to go out in a bad year, for nobody will buy. By Mr. Davies: Q. Why not go out in a good year?-A. One does not want to do so then. By Mr. Foster: Q. I suppose that outside people have shares in Gloucester fishing. vessels?-A. No. Q. They have had ?-A. Yes; but they have given it up. Q. Did you ever know anybody who took a share in the fishing busi ness make money out of it?-A. I never knew such a person get his money back again, unless the vessel was sold or accidentally lost, when through the insurance he would secure part of it. Q. That is a notorious fact?-A. Yes. Q. In your business you secure in fact the profits of a commissionmerchant, I suppose ?-A. Yes. Q. And there is where all the money is?—A. Yes. Q. Some of us have been there and know how it is?-A. We have not had any money to invest in railway stocks, and that is why things with us are not so bad as they might be. Q. These people who have at all laid up money in Gloucester in the fishing business have been men who have gone into the business early in life, as soon in fact as they were able to work, when 15 or 16 years old, and who have gone on and laid up money?-A. No one has made any money there. . Q. Some have; take Leighton's case?-A. He has not laid up any money. He has it invested in property, but he has not got any money. His property is worth more than enough to pay his debts. Q. There is a great shrinkage in the price of vessels when sold ?—A. Yes. Q. Did you go to Washington before the Washington Treaty was ratified?-A. It was before the treaty was completed, and previous to that. I was there a week on the former occasion. Q. This petition was presented the year following?-A. Yes. Q. Were you there after its provisions were known to remonstrate against its ratification?-A. I was there before the treaty was completed and at the time when it was completed. Q. Originally the fishing-vessels of Massachusetts were largely engaged in the cod fishery ?-A. Yes. Q. And the mackerel fishery has since grown up?-A. I remember the first man who went to the bay to catch mackerel. Q. But the cod fishery is two hundred years old?-A. Yes; it is ancient. Q. And in connection with it there used to be a bounty ?—-A. Yes. Q. How much was it?-A. $4 a ton. Q. For every vessel?-A. It was paid for every vessel that was at sea fishing 4 months for cod. Q. When was this bounty taken off?-A. I cannot give the year; it was perhaps twenty years ago. Q. Was not this bounty a pretty important element in the cod fishing business?-A. Yes. Q. And when it was removed it was felt that the fishing interests must decline?-A. Yes. Q. Did you ever know of a nation where the fishing industry prospered except under a bounty ?-A. No. Q. Is it not always then prosperous because it is the policy of the nation to cherish it as a nursery for its seamen ?-A. The French always pay a bounty. Q. And did not the duty on Canadian-caught fish replace the bounty? -A. Yes; and the reduction of the duty on salt was granted as an offset for the removal of the duty. Q. And that came later?-A. Yes; two or three years after the ratification of the treaty. Q. When it was proposed to take the duty off you remonstrated, thinking that this would reduce the price of fish, and this was the general feeling among the fishermen and of the inhabitants of the coast of New England?-A. Yes. Q. And the next year after the Washington Treaty went into opera tion you got help in the form of a drawback on salt?-A. Yes. The government passed an act allowing salt to be used in the curing of fish to be entered duty free. Q. You took it out under bond?--A. Yes; and at the end of the year we furnished sufficient proof that it had been used in the curing of fish. A small charge, 8 cents per hogshead, was made for weighing. Q. How does the gain you obtain by the removal of the duty on salt compare with the gain which was derived from the old bounty system?— A. It is in part an equivalent; but I have not figured it up. I think one-half, or about that, went to the owners under the bounty system. Q. The poorer qualities of mackerel are used as food by the poor?-A. Yes; and they used to be shipped in great quantity to the Southern States; very few were sent to the West Indies. We supposed that they were used on the plantations. Q. Any considerable rise in price would destroy this market?--A. Yes; if they do not buy this sort of fish at a low price they will not buy it at all. Q. Then what market is there for the very best mackerel, the other extreme, which is a luxury for which some are willing to pay a pretty high price?—A. This mackerel is used by families and in hotels in New York; and 10,000 barrels would be a large quantity of this quality to sell in the United States market at anything over $20 a barrel. Q. The impression seems to prevail in some quarters that the pros perity of Gloucester grows out of the right to catch fish within three miles of the shore in British territorial waters; is there any appreciable part of the growth and wealth of Gloucester which depends on this privilege?-A. I do not consider that it is any addition at all to the wealth or growth of Gloucester Q. You never knew a New England town where there were enterpris ing men, who began poor and lived economically, who did not increase in wealth?—A. No. By Mr. Davies: Q. Why do these men go fishing for $300 a year when they can get $600 by working on your wharves?-A. If they did not go fishing no employment could be had on the wharves. Besides, the young men would rather go fishing. It is their nature to be on the water. They are used to it, commencing this life when they are boys; and they like its associations and to be with their friends on the water and have a jolly time. Q. And money has nothing to do with it?—A. It has very little: but the associations and the chance they have of doing better than $30 a month has. They all go on shares. Q. They have a chance to rise and become masters ?-A. Yes; and make more than thirty dollars a month. By Mr. Trescot: Q. Do these young men come from here ?-A. Yes; from Halifax in particular; a large number comes from the provinces and Newfoundland. Three-fourths of our crews are single men. Q. Do they settle very largely in Gloucester?-A. Yes; our increase of population has come largely from Nova Scotia. By Sir Alexander Galt: Q. I suppose that you have no more difficulty in getting crews to go mackerel-fishing than to go cod-fishing?—A. Our best and our smartest men go cod-fishing, because they can make more at it. Our mackerelfishing crews are made up of odds and ends. Q. I thought you kept the vessels' crews together?-A. They will go cod-fishing, and then I will pick up a crew to go mackerel-fishing. Q. I understood you to say that you employed your vessels perhaps more profitably cod-fishing during certain months of the year than at anything else; and that then you kept them employed either on your own coast or in the Bay of St. Lawrence during the intermediate months: that in fact the cod and mackerel fisheries fitted into each other, enabling you to employ your vessels to advantage throughout the years; and that though it might be disadvantageous during one particular trip, still the trade was so arranged that it enabled you for ten months of the year to use your vessels in a certain circle of employment?—A. Yes. Our vessels make six or eight voyages a year; but these men are not attached to the vessels save perhaps for one trip. They change from one vessel to another. The best men follow cod-fishing on the Banks, and the poorest men, the old men and boys, follow mackerel fishing. Q. You have said, I think, that cod-fishing was so hard on them that they were very glad to go into the bay or on your own shores to fish for two or three months at a different and rather easier kind of fishing? -A. Yes; and then there is a class of men that man our vessels on mackerel voyages, and on these it is that we learn our boys the busi ness. Afterwards they will go cod-fishing. The mackerel-fishing business in one sense has been a sort of nursery for fishermen among our natives and was so until Nova Scotia and Newfoundland became such a nursery for us. These countries now raise up our fishermen, and they do not come among us until they are of age. Q. The object of my inquiry was this: It struck me from what you said that there was a very intimate connection between the cod and mackerel fisheries?—A. That is the case; the halibut fishery is included in the same category. By Mr. Davies: Q. Do you find any difficulty to get men to go on Georges Bank?A. Not much. Q. Is it not considered one of the most dangerous fishing places in the world?—A. It has been a very disastrous place some seasons; but within the past few years the disasters on the Grand Banks have exceeded those on Georges Bank; and some years the disasters in the bay have been more severe than those on Georges. We find that the dangers are divided around. We lost as many as 140 men one spring on Georges Bank. Some years it is very dangerous there. By Mr. Foster: I re Q. I am reminded that you said you recollected the first year when a mackerel-fishing vessel went to the bay?—A. I did not say so. member, however, a man who went on this first vessel. Q. Who was he?-A. Capt. Charles Wood. He is now dead-he died a few years ago. Q. You must have been pretty young at the time?—A. I was not very that was in 1830 or 1831. old; Q. What proportion of the fishermen of Gloucester come from the provinces-A. I suppose that over one-half of them come from the provinces and Newfoundland. Q. And how is it with the skippers ?-A. Well, I suppose that over one-half of our vessels are now skippered with natives of Nova Scotia. Q. Though they are really and nominally naturalized?-A. Of course they are naturalized after a time; they are good fishermen. Statement handed in by Mr. Joseph O. Procter, October 1, 1877, and referred to in his evidence. Average trip, 183 bbls. at $11.57. Less for bait Crew-half Owner's-half.. 'Crew's half, $968. 14 hands, 10 weeks, or $27.64 per month. Owner's half Average value of vessels Cost of voyage. $2,117 2) 1,7 5, Insurance, $125.00; commission to master, $76 Provisions, oil, and fuel, $390; salt, $80..... Fishing gear, $50; vessel's running expenses, $200.......... Average loss per trip.... Charter of schooner, 90 tons, at $2 per ton per month-3 months. $125 200 100 75 $500 201 470 250 175 1.096 1 540 |