chairman and director, and further insisted on the need of international co-operation in the investigations.
United States Fisheries.—The administration of the fisheries of the United States of America is under the control of the several coastal states, but the Bureau of Fisheries at Washington, which reports to the secretary of commerce and labour, conducts a vast amount of scientific fishery investigation, issues admirable statistical and biological reports, and conducts on a very large scale work on the replenishment of the fishing stations by artificial means (see Pisciculture). Although in recent years Canada has given an increasing amount of state support to the investigation, control and assistance of her fisheries, an amount actually and relatively far exceeding that given in Great Britain, the fishing industry of the United States still far exceeds that of Canada. A considerable bulk of fish, taken by American ships from the Newfoundland coasts and from those of other British provinces, is landed at American ports, but as the following recent table shows, it is much less than that taken from American waters.
| Quantities | Value | |
| (a) From fishing grounds off U.S. coasts (b) From fishing grounds off Newfoundland (c) From fishing grounds off other British provinces |
152,241,139 17,165,083 32,608,343 |
£669,640 103,145 192,517 |
The fisheries of the United States show a substantial increase from year to year. There has been a decline in some important branches owing to indiscreet fishing and to the inevitable effects of civilization on certain kinds of animal life and in certain restricted areas. Such diminution has been more than compensated for by growth resulting from the invasion of new fishing grounds made possible by increase in the sea-going capacity of the vessels employed, by improvement in the preservation and handling of the catch, and by the greater utilization of products which until comparatively recently were disregarded or considered without economic value. The annual value of the water products taken and sold by the United States fishermen now amounts to over £11,000,000, and this sum does not include the very large quantities taken by the fishermen for home consumption or captured by sportsmen and amateurs. Between two and three hundred thousand persons make a livelihood by the industry, and the capital involved exceeds £16,000,000.
The oyster is the most valuable single product, and the output of the United States industry exceeds the combined output of all other countries in the world. The most notable feature of this fishery is that nearly half the total yield now comes from cultivated grounds, so that the business is being placed on a secure basis. Virginia has now taken the first rank as an oyster-producing state, oyster farming being now highly developed with an annual yield of nearly nine million bushels.
The high-sea fisheries for cod, haddock, hake, halibut, mackerel, herring, and so forth are on the whole not increasing in prosperity, the annual value being between one and two million pounds. The lobster fishery shows a markedly diminishing yield, the diminution having been progressive since about 1890, and being attributed to over-fishing and violation of the restrictive regulations. At present a large part of the lobsters consumed in the United States comes from Nova Scotia, but there is evidence of useful results coming from the extensive cultural operations now being carried out.
The whale fishery, at one time the leading fishing industry of the country, is now conducted chiefly in the North Pacific and Arctic oceans, but is decaying, being now expensive, uncertain and often unremunerative. The annual value of the take is now under £200,000.
The important group of anadromous fishes (those like salmon, shad, alewife, striped bass and sea perches, which ascend the rivers from the ocean) has continued to provide an increasing source of income to fishermen, the combined value of the catch on the Atlantic and Pacific seaboards now amounting to over £3,000,000 annually. The fisheries of the Great Lakes yield about £600,000 annually. (W. Ga.; P. C. M.)
FISHERY (Law of). This subject has (1) its international aspect; (2) its municipal aspect. On the high seas outside territorial waters the right of fishery is now recognized as common to all nations. Claims were made in former times by single nations to the exclusive right of fishing in tracts of open sea; such as that set up by Denmark in respect of the North Sea, as lying between its possessions of Norway and Iceland, against England in the 17th century, and against England and Holland in the 18th century, when she prohibited any foreigners fishing within 15 German miles of the shores of Greenland and Iceland. This claim, however, was always effectively resisted on the ground stated in Queen Elizabeth’s remonstrance to Denmark on the subject in 1602, that “the law of nations alloweth of fishing in the sea everywhere, even in seas where a nation hath propertie of command.” The enunciation of this principle is to be found, also, in the award of the arbitration court which decided the question of the fur-seal fishery in Bering Sea in 1894. (See Bering Sea Arbitration; Arbitration, International.) The right of nations to take fish in the sea may, however, be restrained or regulated by treaty or custom; and Great Britain has entered into conventions with other nations with regard to fishing in certain parts of the sea. The provisions of such conventions are made binding on British subjects by statutes.
Instances of these are the conventions of 1818 and 1872 between Great Britain and the United States as to the fisheries on the eastern coasts of British North America and the United States within certain limits, and the award of the Bering Sea arbitration tribunal under the treaty of 1892; the conventions between Great Britain and France in 1839 and 1867 as regards fishing in the seas adjoining these countries, the latter of which will come into force on the repeal of the former; the agreement of 1904 with respect to the Newfoundland fisheries (see Newfoundland); the convention of 1882 between Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Great Britain and Holland, regarding the North Sea fisheries; that of 1887 between the same parties concerning the liquor traffic in the North Sea; and the declaration regarding the same waters made between Great Britain and Belgium for the settlement of differences between their fishermen subjects in such extra-territorial waters. At the instance of the Swedish government the British parliament also passed an act in 1875 to establish a close time for the seal fishery in the seas adjacent to the eastern coasts of Greenland.
Cases have come before British courts with regard to the whale fishery in northern and southern seas; and the customs proved to exist among the whaling ships of the nations engaged in a particular trade have been upheld if known to the parties to the action. In territorial waters, on the other hand, fishery is a right exclusively belonging to the subjects of the country owning such waters, and no foreigners can fish there except by convention.
(a) Tidal Waters.—In British territorial waters, it may be stated, as the general rule, that fishery is a right incidental to the soil covered by the waters in which that right is exercised.
The bed of all navigable rivers where the tide flows and reflows, and of all estuaries or arms of the sea, is vested in the crown; and therefore, in Lord Chief Justice Hale’s words, “the right of the fishery in the sea and the creeks and arms thereof is originally lodged in the crown, as the right of depasturing is originally lodged in the owner of the waste whereof he is lord, or as the right of fishing belongs to him that is the owner of a private or inland river.” “But,” he continues, “though the king is the owner of this great waste, and as a consequent of his propriety hath the primary right of fishing in the sea and the creeks and arms thereof, yet the common people of England have regularly a liberty of fishing therein as a public common of piscary, and may not without injury to their right be restrained of it unless in such places or creeks or navigable rivers where either the king or some particular subject hath gained a propriety exclusive of that common liberty.” (De Jure Maris, ch. iv.).
This right extends to all fish floating in the sea or left on the seashore, except certain fish known as royal fish, which, when taken in territorial waters, belong to the crown or its grantee, though caught by another person. These are whales, sturgeons and porpoises; and grampuses are also sometimes added (whales, porpoises and grampuses being “fishes” only in a legal sense). In Scotland only whales which are of large size can be so claimed;
