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duced on the part of the sea Jishers, chiefly to provide 

 against certain injurious practices which prevail in the 

 Solway and its tributary rivers. 



Now, it is impossible to overlook the circumstance, that 

 this Bill, and the one brought in by the upper heritors on 

 the Tay, are directly opposed to one another. The 

 Solway Bill has been introduced to put down the per- 

 nicious practices and modes of fishing pursued in the 

 rivers : The Tay Bill is meant to protect and perpetuate 

 the practices of the river fishers, and to continue an ab- 

 surd and impolitic monopoly for their private benefit, and 

 to the detriment of the public. Is it consistent with 

 sound policy, that such a state of things should be allowed 

 to exist ; or that Parliament should thus be called upon 

 by individuals, to give its sanction to measures of legisla- 

 tion, so palpably conflicting and irreconcileable ? Is it pos- 

 sible to deny that there is urgent necessity for a FULL IN- 

 QUIRY into the state of that law, under which such things 

 can occur ? And if, after due inquiry, the Legislature shall 

 find itself called upon to interfere at all, ought the measure 

 of this interference to be left in the hands of those very par- 

 ties, who, from their interested views, are, of all others, 

 the least qualified, as well as the least inclined, to work 

 with effect in the cause of the public ? 



Every day's experience, indeed, more loudly calls for 

 a revisal of the present state of the law, in regard to 

 the Salmon fishery of Scotland. But this revisal, to be 

 effectual, must be conducted as a public measure, and with 

 the countenance and support of those, to whom the ad- 

 ministration of public affairs and the care of the public 

 interests, have been entrusted ; not left in the hands 

 of a few private individuals, acting with a view to their 

 own narrow and selfish ends, fighting even among them- 



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