as a field for enterprise and industry they are inexhaustible. Besides their general importance to the country as a source of maritime wealth and commerce, they also possess a special value to the inhabitants. The great variety and superior qualities of the fish products of the sea and inland waters of these Colonies afford a nutritious and economical food admirably adapted to the domestic wants of their mixed and labourious population." Yet at the time this was written the total export of Canadian Fisheries was only $3,357,000.

The export figures, however, do not give a fair impression of actual production or development and the Dominion Government have collected separate data as to the Dominion and Provincial production since Confederation. Speaking in 1884 at the Montreal meeting of the British Association, Mr. L. Z. Joncas, M.P., estimated that the local consumption of fish, apart altogether from export trade, was in that year $17,000,000 or double the amount exported. Professor E. E. Prince, Dominion Commissioner of Fisheries, has made, however, a lower and later estimate of $10,000,000. Incidently, the value set upon one part of the Fisheries in the award of $5,500,000 in 1877 for five years' American use of the Atlantic fishing coast may be mentioned. According to official statistics the total product of Canadian Fisheries* from 1868 to 1899 was $480,000,000, divided as follows:

The total export of the Fisheries of Canada, according to the Report of the Trade and Commerce Department, was $256,837,978 from 1868 to 1901. The increase in amount has been slow and steady. In 1868 the exports were $3,357,510; in 1878 they were $6,853,975; in 1888 they were $7,793,183; in 1898 they were $10,841,661; in 1900, $11,169,083; and in 1901, $10,729,761. details of the export in the last mentioned year included codfish to the value of $2,809,233; mackerel, $301,531; halibut, $33,861; herring, $418,760; lobsters, $2,585,377; salmon, $3,151,098; miscellaneous fresh fish, $1,213,643; miscellaneous fish and fish products, $217,258.

The

Two-thirds of the exports of the Fisheries have in recent years been divided between Great Britain and the United States where the amount used to be one-half. In 1868 the export to Great Britain was $226,915, to the United States $926,792 and to other countries $2,203,803. In 1878 the figures were, respectively, $1,043,539, $2,367,007 and $3,443,429. In 1888 they were $1,544,901.

*The Report of the Minister of Fisheries, 1900.

$3,123,853 and $3,124,429. In 1900 there was a marked change in distribution and Great Britain received $4,071,136, the United States, $3,688,935 and other countries, $3,409,012. The chief increase in these exports has been in canned salmon which was valued at $45,765 in 1868 and amounted to $2,883,330 in 1900; and in canned lobsters which rose from the value of $323,020 in 1873 to $2,372,859 in 1900. The exports of pickled herring and pickled mackerel have notably decreased. In 1901 there was another change and Great Britain took $3,113,306, the United States $4,224,948 and other countries, $3,382,098.

In the total production of $480,000,000, mentioned above, the figures for 1899 are $21,891,706. To this latter sum Nova Scotia contributed $7,347,604; British Columbia, $5,214,074; New Brunswick, $4,119,891; Quebec, $1,953,134; Ontario, $1,590,447; Prince Edward Island, $1,043,645; and Manitoba and the Territories, $622,911. To the exports of fish for the year ending June 30, 1900, and amounting to $11,169,083, Nova Scotia contributed $5,007,798; British Columbia, $3,443,037; New Brunswick, $731,392; Prince Edward Island, $590,152; Ontario, $548,823; Quebec, $541,376; and Manitoba and the Territories $306,505. According to countries this export was distributed very widely. Great Britain received $4,071,136 and the United States, $3,688,935; Australia took $203,444 worth; the British West Indies, $957,958; British Guiana, $199,046; and the British Empire, as a whole, $5,435,507. To Brazil went $427,732 worth; to Cuba, $326,413; to France, $526,187; to Germany, $71,281; to Porto Rico, $358,098; while smaller quantities were sent to Italy, Japan, Sweden and Norway, Portugal and Venezuela.

Much might be said as to the nature of the varied and widely distributed fishing grounds of Canada on lake and river and ocean. The deep fisheries are probably the most important, although much of the twelve thousand miles of sea-coast has not yet been adequately worked. The coast of Nova Scotia from the Bay of Fundy, around the southern part; the coasts of Cape Breton, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island--including the Baie des Chaleur and the Gaspè Coast--and extending to the Island of Anticosti, the Labrador Peninsula and the Magdalen Islands; are the chief Atlantic points. Of these fisheries the largest single product is the cod. This fish appears on the Canadian coasts as a rule between the middle of May and the beginning of June. Its production seems to be diminishing. In 1883 the Maritime Provinces prepared for the trade and sold $6,591,555 worth, while in 1899 the total Canadian yield was given as $3,738,223. The quantity of cod along these coasts is very great and the fishing is carried on either in vessels of 60 or 100 tons on the banks, or in open boats near the shore. According to Mr. Joncas-already quoted--the finest cod in all America is cured on the coast of Gaspé, in Quebec Province. It is a very useful commercial fish. Oil is extracted from its liver; the head, tongues and sounds make excellent food; the offal and bones, when properly prepared, make a fertilizer equal, it is said, to the

Peruvian guano; from the swimming bladder isinglass is made; while the roes are a good bait for sardine fisheries.

The herring fishery is next in importance. For many years past its value has been almost stationary-in 1883, $2,135,000; and in 1899, $2,164,050. The Quebec coast has immense resources in this connection, but they remain largely undeveloped. As soon as the ice disappears in the spring vast shoals of these fish line the coasts, and remain there until December-some even through the winter. The mackeral is a valuable fish in these waters, but its pursuit is described as difficult and precarious. Whatever the reason, the production seems to be diminishing.

A very different industry is lobster fishing and preserving. To Prince Edward Island it has meant much. In 1871 there was only one lobster-canning establishment in the little Province, while in 1881 there were 120 of them putting up 5,200,000 cans. So in New Brunswick, which in 1871 had one factory preparing 20,000 cans, and ten years later sent out 6,000,000 cans. In Nova Scotia there has been a similar result. In 1883 there were 600 factories in these Provinces, shipping 17,500,000 cans or 52,000,000 lobsters, valued at $3,000,000. In 1896 the amount had lessened by nearly a million dollars. Between 1876 and 1898, however, Halifax, from which at least a half of the export is shipped, had received from and for this one industry over $21,000,000. Meanwhile, the value per case had gone up from $6.00 in 1884 to $10.00 in 1898. In view of these facts, and the diminution in the catch, a Royal Commission has recently been investigating the whole subject.

It may be stated here that the oyster fisheries of this part of Canada are very rich, though they do not as yet yield more than $200,000 a year. The Atlantic seal fisheries of the Labrador coasts and the Magdalen Islands are also rich in themselves, and are largely developed by Newfoundland fishermen. Canadians take little part in the work-perhaps because of the hardships involved-although the business is said to pay twenty-five, and sometimes forty, per cent. upon investment. Other fish found plentifully in these Atlantic waters are haddock, halibut, hake and white whale. In the estuarine fisheries of the Maritime Provinces are salmon, shad, gaspereaux (alewife), striped bass, smelts, and in the lakes winninish, or land-locked salmon, lake trout, maskinonge, etc.

Turning to the more important of the fresh water fisheries of Canada we find the great lakes-Ontario, Erie, Huron and Superior teeming with fish of every kind suitable for the table. So with the immense number of rivers running into these vast bodies of water. Similar conditions exist in the Lake-of-the-Woods district, with its many rivers; in the marvellous chain of lakes and rivers comprised in the Mackenzie system; in the Saskatchewan system; and in the Pacific coast system. Food fishes of the most delicate flavour are simply innumerable. The whitefish, the salmon trout, the sturgeon, the pickerel, the pike, the black bass, the perch, the carp, abound in Ontario waters, and most of them are also found in those of Mani

toba and the North-West in much the same measure. In British Columbia the staple is of course, salmon, with a somewhat decaying seal fishery and undeveloped resources in whitefish, trout, etc.

Around this important natural interest there have grown up a number of industrial interests. The Minister of Marine and Fisheries -Sir L. H. Davies--in his Report submitted to Parliament early in the year 1901, gives the latest figures as those for 1899, but as there has been little variance of late years in the industry these may be taken as indicative of later conditions. The fishermen of Canada numbered in 1899, 79,863; their vessels were 1,178 in number with a tonnage of 38,508 and a value of $1,716,973; their boats numbered 38,538 with a value of $1,195,856; their gill nets and seines were valued at $2,162,876 and other traps, nets, etc., at $818,923; the value of the lobster plant was $1,334,179 and the approximate value of freezers, ice and smoke houses, etc., was $2,921,033. The total value of the capital put into the fisheries was, therefore, $10,149,840. Between 1879 and 1899 the number of fishermen increased from 61,395 to 79,893 and the total of capital invested from $4,014,521 to $10,149,840. Incidentally there must be included in the persons concerned in the Fisheries the men employed by the lobster canneries who numbered 13,030 in 1895 and 18,708 in 1899.

Between 1869 and 1899 the chief commercial Fisheries of Canada yielded an immense value--cod, $117,523,126; herring, $60,664,916; lobster, $59,210,127; salmon, $59,103,171; and mackerel, $39,683,427. The fur-seal product, of which history has so much to say, was worth to the British Columbia fishermen between 1876 and 1896 only $7,300,000. In 1899 it was $441,825. The pack of British Columbia salmon in 1900 was 765,519 cases as against 9,847 cases in 1876 and 484,161 cases in 1899.

The Government of Canada has done something to help the fishing industry aside from the national and Imperial cost of maintaining the rights of the fishermen on the Atlantic and in Behring Sea at critical periods. The expenditure for 1900 was $411,717 and this sum included $85,151 for the fisheries proper; $38,070 for fishculture; $97,370 for fisheries' protection service; $160,000 distributed as bounties; miscellaneous expenses of $31,125. The amount received for licenses, fines, etc., in all the Provinces was $88,406.

During the year 1899, under the auspices of Prof. E. E. Prince, Commissioner of Fisheries, 265,996,000 fry were hatched and distributed in Canadian waters, and of these nearly half were lobsters and the rest salmon, lake trout and whitefish. The Atlantic Fisheries Protection fleet was composed of nine vessels, which spent their time in watching the large number of United States fishing vessels and schooners calling at Canadian ports and in protecting the lobster fisheries from the setting of traps during the close season. In Behring Sea there were two British ships, and the sailing fleet numbered 37 vessels. The number of men receiving the Government bounty throughout Canada in 1899 was 28,100.

The Fisheries came in for considerable discussion in Nova Scotia Fisheries Nova Scotia during 1901. In the Assembly, on March and the 14th, Mr. J. H. Sinclair asked for a Committee to exLegislature amine into the subject of better facilities for the transportation of fresh fish. The fisheries had been dealt with in this way in 1899, and the result of the recommendations then made was the construction of bait stations along the coast and considerable help from the Dominion Government. Stations for bait could not be of much avail, however, unless some means were provided for the transportation of fresh fish to the Intercolonial Railway in order that it might be sent west to Montreal and other cities in Quebec and Ontario." The fresh fish trade had grown largely between Mulgrave and Canso as the result of aid given by the Dominion and Provincial Governments to the establishment of a daily boat between those points. Rapid transit was essential to the trade, and all along the coast were places where an industry would very quickly spring up if it were given a little encouragement. In the district between Halifax and Canso, and excluding those ports, the trade was last year $364,545 in value. Agriculture, mining, etc., were helped, and he thought it was time something was done for the fisheries and the fishermen. There was no better way than this in which to provide business for the Intercolonial, and in this both the Governments at Ottawa and Halifax were concerned. The cold storage system of the Dominion Government could be greatly utilized in this connection.

Lieut.-Colonel George Mitchell seconded the motion, and hoped that the Committee would be appointed. The returns from the fisheries were, he declared, enormous in proportion to the capital invested. Mr. D. D. McKenzie supported it also, and referred to the 200 miles of fishing coast on Cape Breton, where the facilities were not as good as on the route from Halifax to Canso. Between Canso and Yarmouth packets and steamers subsidized by the Government were plying continuously, while from the former place to Sydney, C.B., they had no means of communication whatever. The value of the fishing industry in the particular part referred to was $200,000. Something should be done for the men concerned in it, and to meet the demands of the constantly growing market at Sydney. Facilities should be given for bringing fish to that point. Mr. Sinclair corrected this speaker by saying that only one steamer, running for a few months, covered the distance between Halifax and Canso, to which he had referred. The Hon. Mr. McGillivray hoped the investigation would include all the sea coasts of the Province, and the question of sending fresh fish to foreign places, such as Boston. The Premier then moved a Committee composed of Messrs. J. H. Sinclair, A. F. Stoneman, George Mitchell, J. D. Sperry, D. D. McKenzie, J. G. Morrison, M. J. Doucet, D. Finlayson, A. M. Gidney, E. M. Farrell, T. Robertson and C. S. Wilcox, and it was duly accepted by the House.

The Report of this Committee was presented to the Assembly on April 1st, by Mr. Sinclair as Chairman. A number of meetings had