The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-06-11
THE WHALING INDUSTRY.
CAKzDA,s CRUSADEAGAINSPTH
 AMERICANS.

tentea Dy NoAcc rum A4ShAnE Tn me Waters Canada Claims as Her Own. Canada is now projecting a crusade against the United States whaIers fish ing in waters she claims as her own. She has had in Hudson Bay since last summer the Newfoundland seal ship, the Neptune. with an armed expedition headed by Major Noodle, of the North west Mounted Police, who bears a com mission as Governor of Hudson Bay" with the object of driving out the New Bedford whalers who have been win tering in that region for years past. To enforce similar policy against the San Francisco whalers who penetrate Behring Strait and fish along Canada's northwest seaboard to Herschell Island, at the mouth of the Mackenzie river, she has just purchased the Antarctic steamer Gauss from the German gov ernment, and will send her to that re- mote region to drive out the American whalemen who gather there
 As an additional weapon a bill is now being enacted by the Canadian parlia- ment requiring every vessel prosecuting the whale fishery in her waters to ob- tain license so do to, such to be is sued to British subjects only and under special conditions as to converting into marketable products the carcasses of the whales taken, the license to cost g, 900 a year, and the penalty for fishing without it to be $500 day. About ten years ago the Ottawa fisheries depart ment caused notices to be sent to New Bedford, San Francisco and other ports in the United States where whalers out it, notifying them that Canada claimed Territorial Jurisdiction over the adja- Bent northern coast line and waters as | Already described. But no steps were taken to assert this Jurisdiction effec- ively, except that an expedition some even years ago hoisted the British flag It one or two places where United States citizens had established whaling tations, and had done more or less il- lcit trading with the natives in the vi- inity, in direct contravention of Cana as revenue laws.
 No attempt, however, was made to nforce either the fishery or revenue lWs against them and the present nti-American campaign is the first de- ided assertion of sovereignty by the Dominion in this respect. It threatens, bo to be a severe blow to an industry pw at the lowest ebb in it's fortunes, A1t which might, through the steadily creasing prices for whale products, be lbstantially rehabilitated. Only re- Rntly the cables told of sales in Lon pn of two tons of whalebone at $15, 900 ton, and that the worlds visible sup y comprised only four tons more. The best grade of whalebone is obtained om the mighty cetaceans of the fro In north, and if the American whalers e not to have access to the waters tnada c1sisAs that the results must be sastrous to an avocation once among e most important along the Atlantic aboard.
 No seafaring pursuit has declined in ze last half century like whaling. The slited States in 1855 had whaling let of 702 vessels, whose aggregate Ech vas valued at 21S51, 900. The bel pstv~seers of the civil war swept seas sf them, and in 1865 the indus had shrunk in value to $10, 776, 900. Re discovery and utilization of the Sduct of the Pennsylvania oil fields 4IpiGlGQ luG WCTh, duu Uy lccU8 IllG 8aling products yielded only $2. 600. 1895 rAeir worth was $9S2,000 and N eiahty-five ships were employed. 1902 the fleet was reduced to forty selss and the catch to $6S5,000 in be- the prices advancing with the fcity of stocks of oil and bone The fis7 whaling industry has suffered a liar eclipse. Fifty years ago the &ch boasted 320 steam whalers, the st in the world, while a season ago Alert, the only survivor, was lost Cumberland Gulf The other British klers in 1855 numbered thirty-eight, He now only four sail from the Brit Isles altogether, fishing off Hudson lit, the Greenland waters being ndoned, so poorly have they paid erly Newfoundland, which also secuted this northern whaling, has sn it up and turned her attention he chase of the rorqual whales on own coast, with much more satis- lory results.
 is, of course, the hunting of the Whead," or mighty Arctic whale, as lnct from the cachalot, or sperm Ile of the tropics, or the rorqual, or f1Ch WllciS. Ol tliC <AtlcIlAClSJ WtltSl1 10
 to be denied to the New England
 California whalers if Canada has way. In 1902 one Yankee ship alone ght back from Hudson Bay 1000 ids of whalebone, valued at $25,C0O, b last year another had $500 ids as her catch, of almost equal
 g. During these years the British
 CTS secured in the same waters 18,- pounds and 19,300 pounds, respec-
 y, so that if the Americans are ex- ed from that area the British whale
 stand to augment their catch by
 50 per cent, as Canada has no
 CTS of her own. In the Northwest
 age waters, where the San Fran
 whalers fish, they enjoy an abso-
 monopoly, no British ships visiting
 so that Canada's action has not
 the excuse that it is designed to
 rye the scanty fruits of this de-
 ag industry for her own people.
 these modern days it is difficult to
 that this Arctic whaling ever at
 d the magnitude which history
 S for it. Still, facts and figures
 ad dispute prove that in bygone
 the northern whalers were so
 1ant that whole fleets were em-
 d in catching them, and the rival
 the several nations often led to
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