4 
and the handbooks which would be printed, that the Prac- 
tical Fishermen’s Congress would form a most interesting 
and important addition to that work. He had now great 
pleasure in opening the question of the destruction of 
immature fish. It was a subject which had already 
been discussed to a great extent by various authorities, 
some of them very high authorities indeed, and by some 
of their foreign friends who had attended the conferences. 
The matter had never been placed on the agenda before, 
though it had been indirectly introduced into various dis- 
cussions, prominently by Professor Huxley, when he alluded 
to the question in his opening address. He was himself 
more and more impressed that it was a subject of the 
sreatest possible difficulty, and he thought that many 
persons had not borne in mind that it was an international 
question, and one that it would be impossible for them as 
a nation to deal with alone. If anything is to be done, in his 
opinion, it must be done in an international point of view. 
In saying that, it must be palpable to every one that 
they had no jurisdiction as a nation beyond their terri- 
torial waters, which is the three-mile limit. Therefore, 
supposing for one moment that any Bill was introduced 
into Parliament as affecting the destruction of imma- 
ture fish, it could only have jurisdiction within the 
three-mile limit, so that if the English fishermen were to 
be in any way restricted in the capture of immature 
fish, the French, Dutch, Germans, or any other nation 
could do what they liked just beyond that limit; they 
could laugh at the English fishermen for being restricted, 
and could capture any amount of immature fish and send 
them to the foreign markets or to the English markets. 
Therefore, an injustice would be done to the English 
fishermen if they were restricted and the foreigners were 
