142 THE .SALMON. 



productive. But if tliis doctrine were allowed swing, it 

 would create an entire revolution and ultimate anarchy 

 in the fishing community ; it would not only enable 

 the owners of some fisheries, of the smallest or of no 

 value, to make them more productive than the fisheries 

 that have always been highest in value, but in some 

 places it would enable the owners of the lowest fisheries 

 to keep almost everything to themselves. It is a pecu- 

 liarity of fishery property that it cannot be used as 

 absolutely at the owner's disposal, to "make the best 

 of," like some other kinds of property. A man exercis- 

 ing ingenuity or industry, working by the most effective 

 means, and at all seasons, to take as much as possible 

 out of his own laiid, is free so to do, because, however 

 much he may take from that source, he is taking nothing 

 from his neighbours. But a man who exercises ingenuity 

 and industry to take as many fish as possible out of his 

 fishery, these fish being travellers, and neither natives nor 

 residents, makes a proportionate deduction from the share 

 naturally falling to his neighbours. If his neighbours 

 did not follow or better his example, they would lose 

 their share ; if they did, the amount of capture would he 

 in excess of the recuperative powers of nature, and there 

 would soon l)e nothing to share. It is a necessity of the 

 present division and competition of interests in fisheries, 

 that the law can permit only uniform machinery or a 

 limited degree of efficiency ; in other words, it is neces- 

 sary that each owner of a fishery shall not be allowed to 

 use what he may discover to be tJie most effective means 

 of taking fish. There is, indeed, as we shall afterwards 

 try to sliOM', a plan by which this prohibition of ingenuity 



