New-York tribune., 1903-01-25
FISHERIES QUESTION.
4 Newfoundland Reply to President
of Gloucester Board of Trade.
o the Editor OF The Tribune.

rents made by those who claim that they represent
an American fishing industry whose future is jeop
ardized. Mr.. Cunningham, president Of the Glouces
ter Board Of Trade. in his letter to The
Tribune INDUCES in very extraordinary asser-
tions- He is largely interested in the feet which
fishes off Newfoundland-so largely indeed. that
he should know better than advance over his
signature the specious pleas he does. He denies
that the privilege of obtaining bait in waters
IS Of much value New-England, and asserts
that. though the French are absolutely prohibited
from obtaining bait here. they still pursue the
fisheries in undiminished numbers. The latter
sertion IS absolutely false. and TO prove this will
offer the testimony Of Charles NJ Freeman, United
States Consul at St Pierre Miquelon, given in
his a-nual report 70 the Treasury Department at
Washington, for the year ended June 80, 1901, and
published in the volume Commercial Relations:
Another blow to the trade Of s.: Pierre. and one
which affected @ the SheTes s as veil @ WI WAS b the ,i pas
iatIres Of newfoundland. which forbade Newfound-
4 Ps 1k8 ad @ also oT pr6Sbd s the q FTneh from
= 81 ieTT RE was "a Iei,.abe asd since the
passage Of this act the fishing business has been
hampered.
This testimony. given by disinterested Official
living right the spot. and supplied before this
reciprocity issue arose. is open suspicion
its genuineness and will easily outweigh the
naturally biassed arguments Of Mr. Cunningham.
Moreover. the French aided by bounties equal
ling 20 per cent Of the value Of the fish they catch.
hut with these aids il is notorious that their
fishery is steadily declining of late years, both in
the number Of ships OF men and Of fish caught
The number of Frenchmen the Treaty Shore
has declined from 1913 in 1880 $40 in 1902. and the
number Of their stations from twentythree TO nine.
while the value of their catch last year was only
s6006a, against 1851 900 in 1890 The statistics OF
their fishery on the Grand Banks for 1902 not
Vet available, but every previous year OF the last
has shown decline compared with the one
preceding it. In the early days Of the Bait act our
people smuggled much herring TO the French. but
latterly they are seeing that ii pays them better
rber7Se n carp with a
legend placarded in one Of the herring re-
sorts 10 the effect that the fisherman who would
sell bait 10 & Frenchman would steal the pennies
Of his dead mothers eyes.
Nj Cunningham thinks that. whereas seventy
American fishing vessels obtained bait in our
waters in ISi. not more than half that number did
in 1900. he is astray again. The number was
sixty-nine and the trivial shortage is due to the
fact that several Gloucester vessels lost last
winter while homeward bound with herring car
goes from our coast, and could not be replaced in
10 participate in the summers codnShlng
But for this the demand upon bait supply
would have been larger than ever. Canada also
dePends for bait, despite the proximity OF
her maritime provinces to the Banks. OF the Nova
Scotia banking feet of $50 vessels 99 baIted in
waters in 1901 1l2 in 1892 These facts suf1-
GENTLY attest ;he superiority Of Newfoundland
the great bait resort Of the North Atlantic.
Turning now to the winter herring fishery, which
is Of the most important branches of Glouces-
ter's annual trade. find that the export Of her
L
fiscal year ended June 80 1902 &C., SIS barrels.
valued the lowest estimate, at $55ocoo OF this
total, about seventy-1ye thousand eighty thou
sand barrels would be the winters output carried
IN the Gloucester vessels. The United States Fish
Commissions report gives total OF sixty-two
thousand barrels brought into Gloucester and Bos-
for the year ended December 81, 1901, ard the
remainder were landed New-YoTk and Pha-
delphia. All this herring, which is caught by our
own people and sold to the Americans for 81 25
q barrel is got into United States free Of duty
through mistaken Treasury ruling, which
allows the free admission of them being prod
,ic1s Of the American fisheries. whereas the same
herring brought there by Newfoundland vessels
have TO pay z cent pound duty 1t is now being
vigorously argued in this colony that if the Bond
Hay Treaty is respected by the Senate, the colony
should retalate by imposing an export duty of
the amount all herring taken away in
American bottoms, which would put our own peo-
Tle or an equality with their United States com
pettors, and which would be quite justified by the
foregoing facts.
What should strengthen position in making
fight for ourselves is the that the Gloucester
feet is really not manned by Americans at all but
ny Of alien nationalities. This is admitted by
The Gloucester Daily News" OF The ID inst, in
the Of review Of the fisheries for the year
-sl2, wherein it says:
This deterioration of the New-England fishing
feet may be attributed 10 several causes; the
principal one probably being that catching 9f hsh
This IS caIit. G1r3icea HE in the eep SEA- fishng
foreign element although many of them are natll-
respectf often scoompansd With great physical
clscomfOrt, when IL does not involve positive
risk while the element Of danger is one which Is
almost always present. The financial results Of the
Of the voyage are apt 10 be uncertain. So. taking
these circumstances into account there appears to
be irresistible inclination for the native youth
q seek work On shore, WReIe nome @ me 5 can 99
enjoyed under conditions OF less danger ana al
-eVaTd
Descending to figures again, find that out of
eighty-two lost from The Gloucester feet in
So only five were native Americans, The others
being Nova Scotians NewfoUndlanders, Scan
dinavisns French and Portuguese. This is the
personnel on whose behalf Mr. Cunningham and
other vessel owners Of Gloucester invoke the aegs
az The United States. because change In exist
ing Conditions would hurt these outhtters, the
crews cutting Nd figure as the foregoing shows
nd the vessel owners being the only cnes whose
lIoltS might be Tninnlzeo somewhat ne gU1S
Jpn hardly admits Of any dispute, whelner 1nS
"a cr5en 49, Fey, rssse men at C5loucesrer,
-z-,ace -. sL-eit,e5 bi, t5SIr own 1apers 10
have crews Of foreigners; may make fortunes at
the expense OF their neeoier nelghDors ..
However the ratification Of the Bond-Hay treaty
need mean ruin 10 GLOUCESTER That port sens
aost al Of It's catch in the EastsTn states nor Ier
served in pickle, or wet Falteo aId deslgnea 10 10
be sold within few days. Newfoundland's s catcn
Is .drv satea-that is, the picxled fish is exposed
moisture This is the quality Of fish used in South
countries and Newfoundand's exports go
lot OF cry saited ash for the West Indies mainly
Cuba and Porto Rico For nearly one hundrea
years Canada held these markets. and when the
she ;rg,cSC5 3T tsrifT NJ three-foJIrtns Of a cent
pound against Canadian FISH In spite Of that dis
elimination Canada has not alone held the mar
kets but positively bettered her position there;
Cuba since se .irfng her sutonomy has readjusted
The matter but in Porto Rico the United States
fsh from the Tinted States TO that island Tor the
eight months ending august lg was va s 9Iy yb;s S1 d. DE-
cline IS marked, the more so as Canada hsh trade