Mr. PETERSON. Do you know about how many cases that amounts to? Mr. FRIELE. Yes; I can tell you. The total Japanese pack Mr. FRIELE. No; he means the entire pack. Dr. CLARK. The entire pack of 1936 was 2,292,000. Mr. PETERSON. That is the Japanese pack? Dr. CLARK. That includes the Japanese canneries in their own territory, and the canneries in Siberia; and a million and a half cases go to Great Britain. For 1937, the total of their pack is 2,408,000. Mr. PETERSON. It was 2,408,000 in 1937? Dr. CLARK. Yes; of all species. But, as Mr. Friele says, the reds this year are over 1,000,000, which is an increase of about a quarter of a million over last year. Mr. PETERSON. Thank you very much. Mr. SIROVICH. As I understand the situation, Mr. Friele, Bristol Bay is the gold mine of Alaska; it produces the finest kind of salmon in the form of red salmon? Mr. FRIELE. Yes. Mr. SIROVICH. The others are the cheaper grades, the pinks, the chums, and the different species that come in? Mr. FRIELE. That is right. Mr. SIROVICH. Up to the year 1930, there were never any Japanese ships catching any fish whatsoever in the Bering Sea, and at that time the former Commissioner of Fisheries entered into a gentleman's agreement through the Department of State with the Japanese that permitted one or two ships to come down there for observation purposes and to catch crab meat, and it is testified that the Japanese are now not only taking crab meat, but they are "crabbing" everything that comes in there, particularly the red salmon. Is that right? Mr. FRIELE. That is right. Mr. SIROVICH. Now from the testimony that the Commissioner of Fisheries gave yesterday, the Japanese have taken, in his opinion, at least 100,000 cases of red salmon. Is that right? Mr. FRIELE. No. I think they took more. The CHAIRMAN. The record will show what his testimony is. Mr. FRIELE. I think they took about a quarter of a million cases. Mr. SIROVICH. You think they took about a quarter of a million? Mr. FRIELE. Yes. As I just explained a moment before you came in, the early information we had from Japan was that the red salmon run was less than the previous year. In spite of that, the final pack is a quarter of a million cases greater. Mr. SIROVICH. Now the problem that confronts the packers of your type is this: You produce in this country about 21⁄2 million cases in Alaska: Japan produces about 2,400,000 cases in Japan and on the Siberian coast. Now, they have no red salmon over there at the present time, have they? Mr. FRIELE. They have some, but they have depleted their run. They packed last year about 1,100,000 cases of red salmon. Mr. SIROVICH. Is it the same species of red salmon that you have in Bristol Bay? Mr. FRIELE. The same type, but they do not mix. Our American salmon never go to Siberia, and the Siberian salmon never come to Alaska. Mr. SIROVICH. In other words, they go back to their own spawning grounds? Mr. FRIELE. To their own streams; yes. Mr. SIROVICH. And the problem that confronts you up there is the 750,000 cases that you send to Great Britain; that is, you today are in competition with the red salmon that has been taken from American soil Mr. FRIELE. Right. Mr. SIROVICH. And on which the Japanese can undersell you, because of their cheap labor? Mr. FRIELE. Right. Mr. SIROVICH. And it gives special preferential consideration to the Japanese who fish in the outside waters of Bering Sea, when it is not even to our own nationals? Mr. FRIELE. Right. Mr. SIROVICH. And if we were to grant to our own nationals the same right that the Japs have in Bering Sea, it would tend to destroy the conservation principle which we have been trying to follow in our own fishing, to save the fish for our own country; is that right? Mr. FRIELE. Yes, sir. Mr. SIROVICH. So the only solution to the problem is to say to the Japs, in a gentlemanly way, to leave; and, if they won't leave in a gentlemanly way, we have got to drive them out of that place? The CHAIRMAN. I do not see any necessity for making inflammatory statements. We can pass on those things in executive session. Mr. SIROVICH. But, Mr. Chairman, I have a right to express my sentiments. The CHAIRMAN. Well, I have a right not to permit statements of an inflammatory nature. Mr. SIROVICH. Mr. Chairman, the witnesses who are here have given inflammatory statements. The CHAIRMAN. You know very well what the witnesses have said. Are there any other questions of this gentleman? Mr. SIROVICH. I am going to ask the gentleman whatever questions I think are necessary. The CHAIRMAN. I will be very glad to have you ask any questions you want, but to refrain from inflammatory statements. Mr. SIROVICH. The statement was given by a witness yesterday that unless some action is taken by this committee, a boycott of an economic nature will take place on the Pacific coast, and that action might be taken independently by the people in Alaska. Is that the statement you have heard, too? Mr. FRIELE. I have heard that too, yes. Mr. SIROVICH. Therefore, there is no inflammatory statement coming from this committee, because that is a statement that has come from Alaska. The CHAIRMAN. The record will show all that. Mr. SIROVICH. Well, I have a right to ask witnesses to confirm. statements that others make, Mr. Chairman. The CHAIRMAN. The record shows what the witnesses have said; I do not see where there is any need of confirmation of what they have said. The record will speak for itself. Mr. SIROVICH. In all testimony that I know of that is given, there are always elements on which we want confirmation, and I want to feel that the witnesses' testimony has been confirmed. Do you confirm that testimony? Mr. FRIELE. Yes, I do. I have heard the same thing that was said yesterday. Mr. SIROVICH. What do you think would be the solution, outside of this bill? Mr. FRIELE. Unless it can be solved through diplomatic channels, I think it has to be solved somehow. Mr. SIROVICH. Have you people appealed to the diplomatic representatives of our Nation to try to settle it? Mr. FRIELE. Yes, we have. Mr. SIROVICH. How long has that been going on? Mr. FRIELE. Ever since this matter came up last year. Mr. SIROVICH. And what has been the result of your diplomatic contact with the Department? Mr. FRIELE. We do not know. The Department will not tell us anything yet. Mr. SIROVICH. That is all. The CHAIRMAN. If there are no further questions, you may stand aside. Who is the next witness? Mr. DIMOND. Mr. Gilbert. STATEMENT OF J. N. GILBERT, VICE PRESIDENT AND OPERATING MANAGER, PACIFIC BELLINGHAM, WASH. AMERICAN FISHERIES, Mr. DIMOND. Mr. Gilbert, will you please state your name, your position and your business, then outline your experience and state where you have operated in the Territory of Alaska and elsewhere in connection with the salmon fishery, and then proceed to tell the committee what you know, generally, about the subject matter of this bill? Mr. GILBERT. Mr. Chairman, my name is J. N. Gilbert; my present position is vice president and operating manager of the Pacific American Fisheries, Bellingham, Wash. My experience goes back for a period of 27 years, in practically all districts of Alaska, using various types of equipment. My story is going to be rather short today, and it is going to be with particular reference to an experience I had in the year 1922. Prior to that, I had finished on the Yukon River, practically the only operation that has been conducted there on a commercial basis, and, due to the regulations of the Bureau of Fisheries of the United States Department of Commerce, they closed up the Yukon River at the end of the season of 1921. It then became necessary for our company to look for some other place to operate, in order to utilize our equipment and investment, and we moved down to Bristol Bay in the spring of 1922. I sent a crew up there on a tugboat, and I went up with a crew of 208 men on the steamship Curacao. The Bristol Bay district was entirely new to me at that time. All I knew about the district was what I could learn from talking with others who had been there. The type of equipment used in Bristol Bay was sailboats and gill nets; no powerboats or any other type of offshore equipment. However, our company had had some previous experience at Cordova and other rivers of a similar type, where we had used power gill nets. They had also been used on the Columbia River and the Fraser River. So we felt possibly we could use powerboats to advantage in that district. The powerboats which we used up there were of the same type, kind, dimensions, and capacity as were used on the Columbia River and on the Fraser River and the Copper River. We had been told it was impracticable and had been tried, that is, to use the purse seines in the Bristol Bay area; but we had observed that they had been effective off of Port Moller, which is also on Bering Sea, down the coast some 250 miles. We also observed purse seines had been effective off the coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, some 12 or 15 miles offshore, and we could not see any reason why those same fishermen, with their experience and their type of equipment, should not be effective in Bristol Bay. Accordingly, we hired the three best purse-seine boats on Puget Sound. For the purpose of the record, the names of those boats are the Superior, Capt. Spiro Babich; the Emancipator, Capt. Paul Puaratich; and the Janus, Capt. Nick Babich. These three boats were approximately 65 feet long, about 18 feet beam, and each had 50horsepower gas engines, and they had the record of probably being the high boats and the most successful off of the Swiftsure Banks outside of the Vancouver coast. Ordinarily the run of salmon starts in Bristol Bay area from the 25th to the 28th or 30th of June, and the volume picks up from that time and goes on to the 15th of July and the 18th of July, and sometimes for 2 or 3 days later. Along about the 20th of June, in 1922, the particular year to which I make reference, I had occasion to visit another cannery at the mouth of the Naknek River. It was Sunday evening. We had no 36-hour closing law, nor any midweek closing; in fact, there was no closing and we could fish all through the week. On this particular Sunday evening, I left this place where I was visiting about 6 o'clock in the evening and I went out on our cannery tender and went alongside of our ship, the steamer Curacao, at the ship anchorage, about 8 or 9 miles off of the mouth of the Naknek River. As I came alongside of the ship, the members of the crew, the captain and all, were very much excited and they said "We have a lot of fish aboard," and I crawled up the Jacob's ladder, and when I got aboard I inquired where they got the fish, and they said the purseseine boats had brought them in. So I took a look and, as a matter of fact, they had 35,000 red salmon on the foredeck of this ship. We had no idea of receiving any fish for a week. They were not expected for a week. As a matter of fact, none of the other people who were operating in the same district with gill nets got any fish for a week. When I arrived, those boats had gone back, after having discharged the fish on board the cannery ship. To make it very brief, we were not ready to take care of those fish. Our cannery had just been moved down from the Yukon River and we had not the belts and the pulleys and the cannery cleared out, and it was not ready to operate. So the first thing I did was to go to one of the Libby, McNeil & Libby canneries and make a deal and arrange for the sale of this salmon, and between what we could handle and what Libby handled prior to the main run that came in some 5 or 6 days later, we had sold to Libby, McNeil & Libby over 250,000 red salmon caught by those boats. Upon making inquiry as to where they had caught those fish, we found that they first began 60 or 70 miles down the coast and about 10 or 15 miles offshore. The position where they were operating was approximately the same, within a very few miles, of where those Japanese ships were located. And, as was observed and related by the previous witness, from time to time the same boats operated from that outer point of 60 or 75 miles down, up until the time they got to the ships, which was about as far in as they could operate. I give you this, gentlemen, just as a recital of the experience which I actually had there. During the season these three boats caught a total of over 700,000 red salmon, all caught offshore, all caught in an area that might be subject to attack by some outside foreign fisheries. And to recite some particular examples, I know that one particular day they went out there, that one of the boats made a haul and caught what was estimated to be 65,000 salmon in one haul. That 65,000 salmon filled up the three boats, that is, it filled all three of them. They each had a capacity of approximately 17,000 fish. Mr. SIROVICH. Within the 3-mile limit of Bristol Bay, is it fresh water or salty? Mr. GILBERT. On top it is fresh, but underneath it is salty, but that fresh water goes a long way out to sea. Mr. SIROVICH. How many miles would that fresh water go out to sea? Mr. GILBERT. I do not know. I have flown away out, and I have seen the discolored water 30 and 40 miles out to sea. Mr. SIROVICH. That means the fish they caught were the best type, too, because they had not entered fresh water? Mr. GILBERT. That water is more or less brackish, anyhow, and there is enough salt in it so that it would not have any material effect on the quality of the salmon. What I wanted to show was that one of these boats caught 65,000 salmon in one seine haul. Now the boat could not carry that many; he had to load up his two other boats, besides himself, and the balance were put on the fish scow which had been towed out there. They had a great notion as to what they could do, and apparently they could do it. On another occasion, one of the boats went out and caught 45,000 salmon, and it was alone with the scow, and he could only carry 17,000 aboard, but the scow carried approximately 45,000, and he went out there and pursed up a load and put them on top of this scow and I sold the whole scow to Libby, and got a count of 45,000. Mr. SIROVICH. What is the average weight of one of those red salmon? Mr. GILBERT. They run around 5 to 5%1⁄2 pounds; about 5%1⁄2 pounds would be the average. When I tell you that these three boats caught a total of 700,000 fish for us that season, I want you to remember that I had a limit clause in my contract of 7,000 maximum delivery in any one day. And had not I had that clause and if I had had a market for them, I |