APPENDIX. 145 



and by expressly repealing the lOtli Charles First, 

 which prohibited the "setting of stop nets, still nets, 

 or standing nets in the rivers, where the salmon 

 should pass up from the sea ;" and upon this impor- 

 tant question, on the construction of the statute law, 

 one of the greatest judges that ever sat upon the 

 bench in Ireland has decided, that the 5th and 6th 

 Vict, has not repealed the provision of Magna Charta : 

 the right, therefore, to use these engines in the way 

 they are used, remains unsettled, and so important a 

 matter demands an immediate adjustment. The Fish- 

 ery Act, in this respect, is inconsistent with itself ; it 

 saves the rights of navigation, and of public fishing ; 

 by which exception it may be said to repeal itself. 

 From this uncertainty the worst results take place, 

 and in different districts, the humbler classes have 

 proceeded, by force, to abate the nuisance of this vast 

 monopoly. 



No matter what the secret machinery may have 

 been which produced this Act of Parliament, the 

 practical question now is, how to remedy or modify 

 the mischief. A Bill will be brought in. If the 

 Law Officers of the Crown have doubts as to the 

 illegality of these structures, erected under the Act, 

 in rivers and harbours, I can suggest nothing but a 

 commission of inquiry, to report upon a proper limit; 

 but if it be conceded, that these engines when so used 

 are illegal, the Legislature can deal with the subject 

 by a short clause, aud no such inquiry will be neces- 

 sary. The ablest jurists have laid it down tliaii 



