OYSTER FISHERY LEGISLATION. 983 



forth and rear their young. So with an oyster-bed. 

 Other circumstances being like, the supply of oysters in 

 the bed will depend upon the total number allowed to 

 shed their spawn during the breeding season. 



The Commissioners further intimate in their Report 

 that there is at present no law to prevent persons taking 

 oysters, during the close season, from any beds within a 

 three-mile line from the coast of England and Wales. 

 They came to this opinion after a careful consideration of 

 the Convention Act of 1844, which gave effect to the 

 Fishery Convention between this country and France. 

 The point is not free from doubt, and opinions on both 

 sides of this knotty question have been given by successive 

 Attorney-Generals. It appears, however, that the opera- 

 tion of the Act is strictly limited to the district to which 

 the Convention itself applied, and therefore only to the 

 seas common to the two countries, and not to those parts 

 within the three-mile limit, which are reserved for the 

 exclusive control and jurisdiction of either country. If 

 this interpretation be right, the strange anomaly exists of 

 a penal law affecting the oyster-dredgers beyond an in- 

 visible line drawn at three miles from the coast, and no 

 law whatever within that line. Beyond, it is unlawful to 

 dredge for oysters during the summer months, or at any 

 time to take oysters of a less diameter than 2% inches ; 

 within, there is no such restriction at all. 



The Government appear to have adopted the opinion 

 of the Commissioners ; for an order was issued by the 

 Board of Trade, in 1867, that the provisions of the Con- 

 vention Act relating to oysters were not to be enforced by 

 the coast-guard or cruisers within the three-mile limit. 



In the course of last winter an International Commis- 

 sion, agreed to between this country and France, for the 



