OF MASSACHUSETTS. 5 



and should be held in common by the inhabitants of the shore 

 communities, to the exclusion of citizens from other sections 

 of the State, — an assumption which is directly contrary to 

 the more ancient law, supported by decisions of the highest 

 courts, that the right of taking shellfish is a public right, freely 

 open to any inhabitant of the State. Such unwarranted as- 

 sumption of exclusive rights in the shellfisheries by individuals, 

 corporations or towns sacrifices the rights of the majority. 

 The disastrous effect of this policy is plainly demonstrated in 

 the history of the rise and decline of the shellfisheries of Mas- 

 sachusetts. 



Secondly, this fallacious assumption is contrary to the funda- 

 mental principles of all economic doctrines. It may be safely 

 affirmed that the individual ownership of property has proved 

 not only a success but even is a necessary condition of progress, 

 and has in fact at length become the foundation of all society. 

 It inevitably follows that if the system is justifiable in the case 

 of farm lands it is equally justifiable in the case of the tidal 

 flats, for the same principle is involved in each. It is there- 

 fore fair to assume that if private ownership of farm land has 

 proved to be for the best interests of human progress, so private, 

 ownership of the tidal flats will also be a benefit to the public. 



It is not our purpose to discuss the underlying principle in- 

 volved in private ownership of property, — it is simply our 

 purpose to call attention to two facts : ( 1 ) if individual control 

 of real estate is just, private ownership of tidal flats and waters 

 is likewise just; (2) that individual control of such areas is 

 the only practical system yet devised capable of checking the 

 alarming decline in the shellfisheries and of developing them 

 to a normal state of productiveness, and rendering unnecessary 

 an annually increasing mass of restrictive legislation. 



The Present System. — The present system of controlling 

 the shellfisheries is based on the communal ownership of the 

 tidal flats. Ownership by the Commonwealth has degenerated 

 into a system of town control, whereby every coast community 

 has entire jurisdiction over its shellfisheries, to the practical 

 exclusion of citizens of all other towns. Thus at the present 

 time the mollusk fisheries of Massachusetts are divided into a 

 number of separate and disorganized units, which are incapable 



