THE FISHERY INTERESTS OF AUSTRIA. 667 



paid, iii accordance with the ordinance of July 5, 1853. It should be 

 made either by the authorities or by mutual agreement between the 

 contracting parties. 



Some think the provinces ought to issue bonds covering the amount 

 of the exemption, while others would have the communities or private 

 individuals owning the shores furnish the money required to pay the 

 former privilege-holders. 



Leaving out of view certain minor details, which could be arranged 

 without much difficulty, the solution of the chief question should have 

 proper regard to the fisheries as well as to social and other relations. 



In order to make the owners of the river-beds, or, more properly speak- 

 ing, of the shores, interested in the development of this industry, it 

 should be considered an important point, when buying off the privileges, 

 to remove out of the way the many causes of disputes between privi- 

 lege-holders and owners of the shore ; and to produce a well-estab- 

 lished state of affairs on a secure legal basis. This has been done in 

 Silesia, where the assembly, guided by the above-mentioned considera- 

 tions, has taken measures to continue the buying-off of fishing-privi- 

 leges, which had been commenced in accordance with the general regu- 

 lations for buying off liens resting on landed property, but which so far 

 had not yet beeu fully carried out. 



In several reports, we find the remark that serious complications had 

 arisen since 1848 where former rulers exercise the right of fishing be- 

 tweeu lauds belonging to their former subjects ; and that the abolition 

 of fishing-privileges on the waters of others in the three provinces of 

 Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia had produced a desire in many other 

 provinces to see the same thing accomplished with them. Fishing- 

 privileges have frequently remained objects of dispute in the three 

 above-mentioned provinces, because the regulations regarding them 

 had not yet been fully carried out, and in other provinces, because the 

 titles to property were in many cases not perfectly clear. This applies 

 particularly to the fisheries in mill-streams, or in small tributary rivers, 

 in small brooks, where fishing was rarely carried on, and where the area 

 of the brook was frequently entered in the Kataster* as belonging to 

 village-communities, or to the persons owning the lands bordering on 

 such brooks; they, at any rate, paying the taxes on such property. It is 

 a natural consequence of such doubts and disputes that the owners of 

 the shore endeavor to keep privilege-holders and superintending officers 

 away from it, and seek to hinder all measures tending to the develop- 

 ment of the fisheries. 



Wherever such circumstances prevail, we cannot hope to see the fish- 

 ing-laws carried out vigorously, or to see piscicultural establishments 

 founded ; and since the voluntary abolition of the fishing-privileges 

 presents too many difficulties, most holders of them, communities, and 



* A book containing the surveys, titles, and ownership of the lands. 



