| Summary: | WOULD TAKE FISH NETS FROM HANDS OF FOREIGN CREWS. WOULD TAKE FISH A fight to have aliens prohibiting from fishing in waters of the state under control of L. H. Darwin as state fish commissioner and state game warden, has been started by the commissioner. He claims that the free hand allowed these men has resulted in some very un-American practices springing up. Of the purse seins operated in Puget sound, it is pointed out by Mr. Darwin, at least two-thirds are the property of Austrians, and not over 15 per cent are operated by American citizens. As a result they were absolutely able to dictate the price of their product, and in this is found one of the reasons for the high fish prices of the last few years. The abnormal demands for more than four years of the world war on fisheries of the state, the commissioner holds, has already accomplished the practical destruction of the sockeye salmon run, the greatest of any run in state waters, and has greatly depleted the run of humpback salmon, which comes second in extent. “Now that peace has come, nothing can justify our permitting this destruction to continue,” says Commissioner Darwin. “The Austrians, many of whom have been in the county for 25 or 30 years, were conducting their fishing operations in violation of law, without even declaring their intentions of becoming American citizens until the summer of 1913. But only some 10 to 15 per cent ever completed their citizenship. “The Austrians remained here and conducted their fishing operations, making enormous profits by the depletion of our fisheries, while our own American citizens were forced to leave the fishing industry and go into the army to fight the battles of this country and of civilization against the brothers of these same Austrians. “The Austrian fishermen, during certain weeks of the years, made as high as $700 to $800 each, and the dependents soldiers at the front were compelled to pay the most exorbitant price for fish caught by these same Austrians.” In an attempt to remedy some of these troubles the commissioner has introduced a bill at Olympia providing that hereafter licenses shall be issue only to American citizens or to corporations, the majority of whose stock is held by American citizens to increase the fish taxes so that the industry will be supported without help from the tax-payers; to establish sufficiently long closed seasons to assure an increase of the supply; and to prevent the issuance of any more fish trap or purse seine licenses than were in existence the first of this year. This would not interfere with the activities of the small fisherman.
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