FUTURE SALMON LEUISLATION. 190 



prohibit ; a part which the Crown had not granted 

 away, but which was fished by the ex adverso proprie- 

 tors of the soil without warrant ; and a part which was 

 ungranted and unfished. When, in 1859, the decision of 

 the House of Lords, sitting in appeal, settled that no 

 person had a right to fish salmon in the Scotch seas 

 without grant from the Crown, the Commissioners of 

 Woods, Forests, and Land Revenue sent out circulars to 

 345 persons, exercising salmon -fishing on the sea-coast, 

 without being positively known to possess charters, in- 

 forming them that, unless they possessed valid titles 

 under express grant from the Crown, the fisheries were 

 the property of the Crown, and subject to the administra- 

 tion of the Land Revenue Commissioners, but offering, 

 in the cases where want of title was admitted, to give a 

 short lease of the fisheries at a rental proportionate to 

 the profits of the three years preceding. About a year 

 after those circulars were issued, the Solicitor of the 

 Land Revenue Commissioners stated to a Committee of 

 the House of Lords, that 120 out of the 345 persons had 

 sent no answer, that 180 titles were under investigation, 

 and that twenty-nine persons had confessed want of title, 

 and accepted short leases at rents amounting in all to 

 about £600. Of the progress that has since been made 

 little information has been allowed to transpire ; but we 

 believe that the number of persons who have acknow- 

 ledged want of title, and agreed to pay rent as temporary 

 tenants of the Crown, has at least doubled since 1860, 

 and that the rent now drawn on behalf of the public from 

 this partially recovered property is upwards of £1200. 

 Here is a pretty good beginning — £1200 a year restored 



