10 THE FISHERIES. 



circumstanced as we have above described, and in 

 antagonism to its acknowledged rights and admitted 

 stability, that the legislation of 1842 was directed. 

 Those ancient weirs and fisheries, founded with care 

 by our ancestors, handed down to us through corpo- 

 rations or monastic institutions ; venerated and re- 

 spected amidst every political change, — it was, we 

 say, with reference to this species of property that 

 the discovery was made in the year 1842 that these 

 weirs and fisheries were monopolies ; that such ob- 

 structions w^ere illegal ; that they interfered with the 

 rights of the subject ; and — not that they had in- 

 creased, were increasing, and ought to be diminish- 

 ed, but simply — that they were nuisances of some 

 300, or 500, years' duration, and ought to be abo- 

 lished. 



But how was this to be done ? Time had sanc- 

 tioned them ; Acts of Parhament had recognized 

 them ; the experience of ages had stamped them with 

 utility; — the innovators saw that it would be useless 

 to take the bull by the horns, and so they adopted 

 an ignoble means of undermining and destroying 

 him. 



We would by no means aver, that if these ancient 

 weirs injuriously, or improperly affected pubHc rights, 

 they were not properly amenable to legislative con- 

 trol : on the contrary, we admit the proposition to 

 its full extent. The Irish Parliament always exer- 

 cised control over them, and we venture to say that 

 in Mr. Conolly's Bill, a more effectual control, and 



