there was a very marked decrease in grading standards, unless we made a great sacrifice of quality, that the pack would be cut 40 or 50 percent.

Senator WALLGREN. In the last 2 years did the Army just serve notice on the industry that they would have to have so much of the pack for the needs of the Army, the Navy, and Lend-Lease? Did they submit figures as to the amount of fish they would need, I mean submit figures to the industry?

Mr. ARNOLD. Senator, I have been in the Territory of Alaska the most of the time since the war started in connection with correlating and coordinating activities of the salmon industry with the military operations out there. I would rather dislike to go into details about our relations with the Army out there.

Senator WALLGREN. That is perfectly all right. It was my understanding that the Army had made a request of the industry for so many cases of salmon. I was pointing out the importance of getting out a substantial pack.

Mr. ARNOLD. The Army, the Navy, and the lend-lease authorities have requisitioned practically 100 percent of it. After the amount of the pack is known, and after it is safely brought out of the Territory and is in the warehouse at Seattle, they have determined their requirements and have released some percentage back to the owners. I think 1 year it was 40 percent.

Senator WALLGREN. You mean they released some percentage of the pack for civilian use?

Mr. ARNOLD. That is right.

Senator BURTON. You are certain about one thing, and that is that traps are necessary in order to get an adequate supply to make the pack.

Mr. ARNOLD. I am very certain of that. Of course, I have not said very much on it. It is a long subject, and I do not think it a proper part of this hearing, or that I ought to exhaust all of the time by attempting to defend the use of fish traps. I do not see that their status is changed by this bill. They are not prohibited.

Senator BURTON. You are certain about another fact, as I understand you, and that is that there must be a limitation on the licensing of both traps and mobile gear if you are going to conserve fish for a future supply in the Territory.

Mr. ARNOLD. That is definitely correct, with this one exception, that it might be possible to do it by continually shortening the season. Every time you double the gear you shorten the season. The longest season in the Territory is only 45 days, and if you cut them down every time the gear increases, after a while it is not going to be of any benefit to anybody.

I shall be glad to answer any questions, if I can, that anyone wishes to ask.

Senator BURTON. With those two statements you make, it would seem very necessary that some legislation be enacted.

Mr. ARNOLD. I notice this one thing that I thought might be helpful: The Coordinator of Fisheries, who is the Secretary of the Interior, since the advent of war has supervised operations in the Territory of Alaska for the purpose of bringing about the largest possible propagation of salmon, or production of salmon, I should

say, with the minimum amount of manpower, ship space, and critical materials.

This was partly brought about by the fact that when the war began about 80 percent of the floating equipment owned by the industry was requisitioned for military use. A great deal of that equipment has been turned back under the supervision of the Coordinator of Fisheries.

Under the supervision of the Coordinator of Fisheries the industry has been consolidated, or concentrated, and there are about 115 plants that normally operate. By a very intricate system, those plants have been reduced to about 75 or 80 key plants, thereby reducing the demands for manpower.

The system also calls for the allocation of manpower. The Coordinator of Fisheries appoints a committee, composed of operators and fishermen and individuals, to work out the plan. I happen to be the chairman of that committee. It has just been devising an operating plan for 1944. The allocations of manpower to be used in the Territory as between residents and nonresidents-the question the Senator propounded a while ago-is as follows, subject to some slight changes:

There are to be 7,840 nonresidents allocated for use in Alaska salmon fisheries in 1944, and 4,703 residents. Those figures are a great deal lower than used under normal operations, but the percentages are approximately the same. Of the 12,500, 4,703 are residents and the remainder nonresidents.

Is there anything further?

Senator BILBO (chairman of the subcommittee). Any other questions by members of the subcommittee?

(A pause without response.)

Gentlemen, I think we have carried the hearing as long as we would like to this afternoon. I suggest that we meet tomorrow morning at 10 o'clock in this room. Other gentlemen who gave their names in as witnesses, if you will be here promptly at 10 o'clock tomorrow morning, we will try to hear you.

(Thereupon at 4:40 p. m. the subcommittee recessed until 10 o'clock the following morning, Friday, January 21, 1944.)

ALASKA FISHERY ACT

FRIDAY, JANUARY 21, 1944

UNITED STATES SENATE,

SUBCOMMITTEE OF COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE,

Washington, D. C. The subcommittee met at 10 a. m. pursuant to adjournment of Thursday, January 20, 1944, in the Commerce Committee hearing room, the Capitol, Senator Theodore G. Bilbo (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Senators Bilbo (presiding), Wallgren, Burton, and Robert

son.

Present also: Anthony J. Dimond, Delegate for Alaska, House of Representatives.

Senator BILBO (presiding). The committee will come to order The first witness we wish to call this morning is Mr. Halling of the C. I. O. Maritime Committee.

Senator WALLGREN. He is not here as yet, I understand. He will be here shortly.

Senator BILBO. We will hear Mr. Allen, then, chairman of the International Pacific Salmon Fisheries Commission. Have a seat, Mr Allen.

STATEMENT OF EDWARD W. ALLEN, CHAIRMAN, INTERNATIONAL PACIFIC SALMON FISHERIES; SECRETARY INTERNATIONAL FISHERIES COMMISSION; SEATTLE, WASH. Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Chairman, and members of the committee, I am a lawyer from Seattle and have had considerable to do with fishery employment. I am also United States Commissioner and Chairman of the International Pacific Salmon Fisheries Commission, and United States Commissioner and Secretary of the International Fisheries Commission. One is salmon, the other is halibut.

Senator Wallgren yesterday suggested to you changing section 2 of the act with reference to the question of extending our coastal jurisdiction over fisheries, in view of the request of the State Department. Undoubtedly, his suggestion is sound in view of their request and their desire to pursue the matter through diplomatic channels. However, the matter is considered so important and so urgent by our people out on the Pacific coast that it has been suggested that we should present it a little more fully to you, if you would permit that to be done, and urge upon you that you press the matter to immediate action with the administrative officials who, I know, are taking a very keen, lively interest in it.

This matter is not only important to Alaska, but it is a basic problem in the great food fishery industry on all coasts and has very important international relations involved in it.

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Let me say that before the war started it was estimated that the world catch of food fish amounted to approximately 30,000,000,000 pounds per annum and of that amount the United States' share was almost 41⁄2 billion pounds, so that you will see we are dealing with big figures in the matter of a food supply and natural resource. As Mr. Dimond suggested, it was formerly thought that ocean fisheries were inexhaustible, but with our new high-powered equipment and long-range fishing vessels it has been demonstrated that many of these ocean fisheries are exhaustible, at least to the point of commercial exhaustion that is profitable fishing. Now, the greatest obstacle, probably, for the effective conservation of our coastal fisheries is the so-called 3-mile rule which was referred to by the Delegate yesterday, and on this matter I think that the Delegate and I are in very hearty accord.

Senator WALLGREN. At this point, may I interrupt? Isn't it true that recently the Canadian people have expressed themselves also as being very willing to work out a satisfactory arrangement as to the territorial limits fishing limits?

Mr. ALLEN. I can say this, that there have been informal discussions in which they have shown a very friendly interest. I would not be in a position to express anything beyond that, excepting as I will refer to the actions of these two international commissions.

This 3-mile rule goes back to the early days in the North Sea and the fights between the Dutch and the British over the fisheries of the North Sea, and during the time of the Stuart Kings, during one of these controversies with the Dutch, you will remember that Grotius, the Dutch statesman and lawyer, who has been called the father of modern international law, pronounced the doctrine of the freedom of the seas. They conceded that a nation should have the right to possess a strip of water wide enough along its shores-or as wide along its shores as it could defend from the shore. Well, at that time the range of cannon was very short and it was stated by some of the writers of that day that 3 miles was the farthest that a cannon would ever shoot. Accordingly, some of the writers fixed that distance of 3 miles, or the range of cannon, as this distance which a nation might control.

Now, that rule, while it was written up by different international lawyers, never became officially established until about the early part of the last century, when the British, as you remember, became very dominant on the sea, and it was, from their standpoint and I think probably a natural policy, that they should want to hold down every other nation from extending their control over ocean waters, and so they adopted this very narrow rule, this 3-mile rule, as a rule of British policy. Our New England fishermen at the same time thought that was a pretty good rule from their standpoint and they were largely responsible for the United States taking the same view of trying to hold down this strip of water that any nation could control, to the very narrowest limits. Later on, we find that when Germany and Japan became great naval nations, they fell in line with this rule as being most consonant with their policy. So, we have these four great naval nations as the ones that have been the great exponents of this so-called 3-mile rule, but what many people have overlooked is that it was never universally adopted.

Russia has never agreed to the 3-mile rule. Sweden and Norway never agreed to it. Nor have Portugal, Spain, Mexico-in fact, in the works referred to by Mr. Dimond yesterday, it is, I believe, clearly demonstrated that the majority of nations have never acceded to this 3-mile rule. In view of that fact it is hardly entitled to the dignity of being called a rule of international law. It is merely a rule of policy of those nations which have adopted it, and being only a rule of policy it certainly should be subject to change, and I would like at this point, if I may be permitted, to say that Mr. Dimond in the hearing on H. R. 8344, to which he referred yesterday, filed a very excellent brief which he himself prepared and which is certainly worth perusal in this connection. Now, this, as I say, is only a rule of policy, and our own country has certainly varied from it. And I might say in this connection that these other countries have never hesitated to vary from it when they thought it was in their interest not to adhere to it strictly. You gentlemen passed the Antismuggling Act, which is certainly at variance with this rigid. 3-mile rule. There could be nothing further away from the 3-mile rule than the Declaration of Panama. So, we have ample precedence in that connection by law and by declaration.

When we had our trouble with the Japanese, which was referred to, the State Department made a diplomatic agreement with Japan to withdraw her vessels from Bristol Bay, which constitutes another diplomatic precedent along this line. In other words, it seems to me there is nothing to prevent the United States taking an aggressive policy in this connection.

There is probably no more concentrated and valuable fishing area in the world today than this Bristol Bay fishery which was referred to yesterday. Bristol Bay, as you see there on the map, is the southeasterly corner, if you can call it that, of Bering Sea. It is north of Alaska Peninsula that swings off to the west, right there where Mr. Jackson is pointing. That is Bristol Bay, and as Judge Arnold stated yesterday, in only 21 days of actual fishing they sometimes put up as many as a million and a half cases of salmon in the season. A case is forty-eight 1-pound cans, so that you can see what an enormously congested run that is when they can put up that enormous quantity of fish in just 21 days fishing out of a 30-day season.

You gentlemen are probably somewhat familiar with the life cycle of a salmon, but I would like to mention it in this connection. These salmon in Bristol Bay spawn in those fresh water streams that come into that bay. The young go out usually to sea in the second year. Where they go just where they go is not definitely demonstrated, although many of us believe that they principally range over the continental shelf, that shallow portion of the ocean adjacent to the shore, because that is where their natural food exists. Then, when they are 5 years old I am speaking of the average-there are variations--when they are 5 years old those fish come back to spawn in the very stream in which they were spawned, and after spawning, die. It is a very simple life cycle of the salmon, and in returning to Bristol Bay they go north through channels in the Aleutian Islands off of the end of the Alaska Peninsula. Then they swing northeasterly into Bristol Bay. Somewhere in that curve they get more or less schooled together, but that is far more than 3 miles offshore. Now, the reason that I am pointing that out is that you can see how these fish are going along