1026 OYSTERS, AND ALL ABOUT THEM. 



Lastly, in matters of fishery, the coastguard should be 

 utilised much more than is the case at present. They 

 should be directed to refer to the Fishery Commissioners, 

 through the Board of Trade, in the same manner as they 

 now do concerning wrecks and life-saving apparatus. 



If this was done, we submit that not only oyster, but 

 all other fisheries, would receive both protection and 

 benefit, (o) 



We have now gone through the substance of one of 

 those bodies of special legislation which, though their 

 existence is hardly known except to the persons interested 

 in their subject-matter, are of considerable extent and 

 intricacy, and may raise important questions of general 

 legislative policy. Thus it is evident that in the case of 

 the fishery laws the question of interference with private 

 discretion by the authority of the State has constantly to 

 be decided one way or the other. In dealing with fresh- 

 water fisheries, the tendency of modern law-making has 

 been to impose new restrictions, in dealing with sea- 

 fisheries to remove old ones. There is not necessarily 

 any inconsistency in this, for the circumstances and the 

 purposes of the law are widely different. 



. A lawmaker who thinks and speaks as if he 

 were dealing with a nation of fools will never make good 

 laws ; a passion for formulas is the mark not of an 

 exact but of a petty mind, and is capable of becoming the 

 ruin of legislation and politics. It is enough for us, as 

 regards the matter in hand, to know that our fishery laws, 

 since their improvement was seriously taken up some 

 twenty years ago, have on the whole worked well, and 

 prevented much mischief. From a lawyer's point of view 



(o) Prize Essays issued in connection with the Great International 

 Fisheries Exhibition, London, 1883. (William Clowes & Sons.) 



