36 ADMINISTRATION OF THE FISHERIES ACT. 



ADMINISTRATION OE THE FISHERIES ACT. 



The first-appointed Commissioners of Fisheries for New 

 South Wales were : 



"William Bede Dalley, Q.C., 



Henry Carey Dangar, M.P., 



The Honorable William Macleay, M.L.C., 



Alexander Oliver, M.A., and 



The Honorable George Thornton, M.L.C. 

 These gentlemen, with the Honorable (afterwards Sir) William 

 Macleay as President, were selected by the Government of 

 the day from the members of the Royal Commission already 

 referred to. Possessing a perfect knowledge of the objects 

 they were expected to achieve, they immediately entered 

 upon their honorary and iinj)ortant duties, and proceeded 

 to bring the machinery of the new Act into operation. 



On their recommendation the tidal fisheries were distri- 

 buted into three large divisions, to the general supervision of 

 each of which an inspector was appointed, these officers in 

 their turn being assisted by subordinate inspectors, whose 

 duties were confined to the special oversight of some one of 

 the more important fish and oyster-producing waters. In 

 addition, the services of the Customs and Pilot officers 

 stationed at outlying points along the coast were availed of 

 to oversee any fishing operations which might be taking 

 place there. These minor officers were required to report in 

 full detail to the divisional inspectors every circumstance as 

 it transpired, and the divisional inspectors in turn made 

 periodical communication to the Commissioners. Each in- 

 spector had also special standing instructions to notice the 

 movements and habits of the various kinds of useful fish ; to 

 report the existence of any source of pollution in the waters, 

 or of any mortality, disease, or ill-condition of fish, moUusca, 

 or Crustacea. All these items of information, condensed 

 through the medium of the divisional inspectors' reports, 

 came under the consideration of the Commissioners, who 

 thus fully seized of every item of information concerning the 

 fisheries which had taken place along the entire length of the 

 coast-line, were in a position to apply to any evils or abuses 

 they found existing one or other of the remedies which the 

 Act provided, or their own ripe experience suggested. 



One of the first of these abuses which came under notice 

 was the indiscriminate fishing being carried on in every 



