ve 
‘‘Small immature fish are the food of the poor. 
Weight for-weight, immature fish are cheaper than 
mature fish, and, therefore, unless the clearest grounds 
for prohibiting it can be explained, their sale ought not, 
in our judgment, to be prohibited. The evidence on which 
we have formed the conclusions at which we have already 
arrived in this report satisfies us that these grounds 
have not, as yet, been proved to exist. There are no 
reasons for thinking that the supply of fish, taken asa 
whole, is decreasing; there are no reasons for thinking 
that the destruction of immature fish which is un- 
doubtedly going on is wasteful in the sense that it is 
diminishing the future supply of mature fish, and it is 
not proved, even in those isolated instances in which a 
decrease of fish may be traced, that the decrease is due 
to over-fishing. Those who have read Mr. -Lecky’s 
interesting history of the 18th century will probably 
remember that more than 100 years ago the Irish 
attributed the decreased supply of pilchards on their 
coasts to the new system of trailing (query trawling) 
which had then been lately introduced. Ata still earlier 
period, Bishop Wilson, the eminent prelate of Sodor 
and Man, ordered a general prayer to be offered up in 
the Litany, ‘That it may please Thee to give and 
preserve to our use the kindly fruits of the earth, and 
to restore and continue the blessings of the sea, so that 
in due time we may enjoy them.’ This beautiful 
prayer, which is still read every Sunday in the churches 
of the Isle of Man, is a clear proof that Bishop Wilson 
thought that the fishery needed restoring. More than 
forty years ago, Jeffrey, staying in Renfrewshire for the 
summer, noticed that there were no herrings in the 
