The Wrangell sentinel., 1922-10-19

tries under just and equitable ad- ministration of fishery laws.
 The requisite theory of all fishery laws and regulations pertaining to migratory fish was laid down in Flu rope over sixty years ago by Alex Russell. Scotch authority on fish cries, in language as follows:
 Tt is a peculiarity of fishery prop erty that it cannot be used as abso- lutely at the owners disposal to make the best of, like some other kinds of property. man exercis- ing ingenuity or industry. working by the most effective means, and at all seasons, to take as much as pos sible out of his own land, is free to do so. because. however much he ing nothing from his neighbors. But a man who exercises ingenuity and industry to take as many fish as pos sible out of his fishery. these fish being travellers, and neither natives or residents, makes a proportionate reduction from the share naturally falling to his neighbors. If his neighbors did not follow or better his example, they would lose their share; if they did, the amount of capture would be in excess of the re- cuperative powers of nature, and is a necessity of the present division and competition of interests in fish, cries that the law can permit only uniform machinery or a limited de- gree of efficiency; in other wccds, it is necessary that each owner of fishery shall not be allowed to use what he may discover to be the most ecective means of taking fish"
 Upon this basis the fishery laws of the British Islands and other Flu ropean countries have been enacted and it is a most striking commentary on the fishery laws of these coun- tries that their migratory fisheries have been preserved and increased while the migratory fisheries of the United States have steadily decreased until today the last remaining sup ply of consequence, that of Alaska, is nearing it's extermination.
 nate the statement in paragraph two of your letter that 'the depart ment has availed itself of all the reg ulatory functions delegated to it up to the present time, and I must take pronounced difference with the department in that assertion.
 Under the provisions of the Fish cry Act of 1906 the Secretary of Commerce has had full power to re- strict and prohibit fishing in any stream in Alaska and to a distance of 500 yards from the mouths there of, but for a period of years past un- stricted fishing has been permitted within the areas over which the Sec retary of Commerce has Jurisdiction, and as a result some of our finest salmon streams have been ruined.
 This seasons report to the Bureau of Fisheries from the Copper river section of Alaska is that the salmon fishery is a total failure and thus we learn that the salmon of this great river, formerly one of the finest fish streams, carrying a superior variety of red fish, are virtually extermi mated, and the only explanation of this calamity is that the United States Bureau of Fisheries permitted unrestricted fishing on that stream without any regard for the law of 1906 that gave the Secretary of Com merce restrictive and prohibitory powers which should have been in- voked when the inevitable destruc- tion of the fisheries of the Copper river was evident to all observers.
 Recent reports from Karluk, Alas ka, tell us of the further decline of that once magnificent red salmon known to the Russians as the "River of Life" Today cannery men are to scrape the last fish from the Karluk waters and doubt less the Bureau of Fisheries will soon close the stream to commercial fishing, or, to use a metaphorical flock the stable door now that the horse is stolen" as was done in the case of the Copper river.
 Had the Bureau of Fisheries as- serted its authority to restrict fish ing in this stream in the past under the Act of 1906, there would still be | an abundant supply of fish at Kar- lux.
 The enumeration of destroyed sal-