Ffennell to Colonial Office

It is suggested that the Salmon Fisheries should be placed
under Supervision as well as the land to give security to private
enterprise, and to prevent Confusion of rights and waste, and that
an area of water producing Salmon is likely as Civilization
progresses, and Commerce extends, to become more valuable by one
hundred fold and more, than the same area of land.

That the first step towards promoting the objects referred to,
should be the employment of a person of practical knowledge to
review the rivers to an extent sufficient to enable him to report
upon their capabilities, and to point out the steps which should be
taken to prevent abuses before thay have set in, and to suggest the
modes by which a system of healthy enterprise may be promoted in
the Colony.

By adopting this course many persons from this Country might
soon be induced to embark in the Salmon Fishery of British Columbia, by receiving information which they would rely upon, if
Communicated on the authority of a person of practical knowledge
while at present they can only obtain fragments of information
derived from persons in the Colony whose attention has been
attracted to the question by the immense quantity of fish which
they see exist, and which a few have Communicated, but are unable
to offer any opinion upon the practicality of embarking in such an
enterprise. The quantity of Salmon which at present exist in
British Columbia, and the extent of rivers producing them is so far
beyond any thing which the waters of Great Britain and Ireland ever
produced or could produce that no idea can be formed at present of
their relative value.

The Salmon Fisheries of that Colony appear to be one of the
resources of the Country which might be most readily brought into
Commercial Development if measures were taken to promote it.

Those fisheries are in their present state, natural, and
unimpaired, but as population increases abuses are certain to
follow, as in Canada for instance, where the Government are now
obliged to take up the question and appoint officers to check the
evil—whereas if timely measures be taken to prevent encroachments,
and destruction, much ultimate loss to the Country may be prevented.

The Government now possess those Fisheries—no real or assumed
vested rights by individuals have been established, and it is
suggested that now is the proper time to place them under the
protection of the state, and that they may be soon profitably
disposed of under judicious regulations to enterprising
individuals, and thus bring a large revenue into the Country,
affording increased capital for further and more general operations
of industry.