160 NEW SOUTH WALES 



CHAPTER XIV. 

 Fishery Lauus and Regulations. 



A Bill " to provide for the development and regulation of the 

 Fisheries of the Colony " as introduced by Sir Henry Parkes on the 

 13th January, 1881, in the Legislative Assembly, and of which the 

 present Act is the outcome, was founded, in its most important principles, 

 upon the Report of the Royal Commission on the Fisheries, dated the 

 3rd May, 1880 ; and, in respect of the Oyster Fisheries, the Bill adopted 

 such recommendations of the Oyster Culture Commission contained in 

 their report dated the 3rd May, 1877, as appeared to fall within the 

 scope of the new system of administration which it was proposed to 

 establish. 



Some details of the Bill as introduced were modified in Committee, 

 both in the Assembly and in the Council, and it was found advisable, in 

 Committee, to incorporate an entirely new series of special clauses dealing 

 with proprietary or private fisheries. These now form Part III of the 

 Act as passed. 



To understand the system of regulations introduced by this Act the 

 short and admirable compendium of Mr. Alexander Oliver (one of the 

 Commissioners of Fisheries), is placed before the reader. He says* : — 

 The sea-fisheries on the coasts and in the seas of Northern Europe (in- 

 cluding in that expression Great Britain) are concerned chiefly with 

 the capture of cod, herrings, mackerel, whiting, ling, haddock, and the 

 flat fish, such as turbot, brill, soles, &c. the American, or rather the 

 United States sea-fisheries are for cod, mackerel, menhaden (a species of 

 herring), halibut, and haddock. Now, with the exception of the herring, 

 which is known to spawn in firths and other inlets of the sea (for white- 

 bait caught at the mouth of the Thames is now known to be the fry of 

 the ordinary herring), all the other marine fishes here mentioned either 

 spawn on banks away from the foreshores, and sometimes hundreds of 

 miles distant from land, or else in places almost wholly inaccessible to 

 drift-nets, seines, or trawls. Nets and trawls are therefore almost 

 wholly incapable of destroying the young fry in the European seas ; and 

 on the American coast the purse-seines, by which the mackerel and 

 menhaden are caught, are quite innocent of any similar mischief. Of 

 course the baited lines by which cod, haddock, whiting, and halibut are 

 caught, whether in European or American seas, can do no harm either 

 to spawn or youg fry. Why, then, should there be any statutory pro- 

 tection of these fish from legitimate capture, even if such protection 

 were practicable ? 



In this Colony, however, the conditions are quite diflferent. The most 

 valuable of our fishes are those which are most abundant and most 

 easily captured. Of these the sea mullet, schnapper, the breams, the 

 gar-fish, the black-fish, and whiting may be mentioned as the most 

 important in an economic point of view ; and all these fish either always 

 spawn in quiet waters at the head of salt-water inlets and in lagoons, or 



* The Fisheries Act of 1881, &c., with an Introduction, .Summary, and Index, 

 by Alexander Oliver. Sydney, 1881, Government Printing Office. 



