190 THE SALMON. 



of fishing now in question were used or invented ; so 

 that the property was not granted or acquired with any 

 view to its present uses, and it must have been found 

 capable of those other uses to which it is now proposed 

 to revert. The oldest coast charter is dated 1603, 

 the latest 1819 ; only four such charters have been 

 granted within the present century ; and the latest was 

 not, any more than the earliest, granted under any idea 

 that fixed nets would be used. Also it is worth men- 

 tion in passing, that the coast fishery which got its 

 charter last before the time when fixed nets were intro- 

 duced, has now been fished out of existence by the com- 

 petition of more favourably situated neighbours. 



The very fact of a sea-shore salmon-fishery having a 

 charter is evidence that that fishery can be, and that it has 

 been, fished by the ordinary process of net and coble, or 

 by processes other than fixed nets. If that fishery had not 

 been so fishable, it would not have been a fishery at all, 

 till within these few years, and therefore would not have 

 been granted, purchased, or fished, as those fisheries were, 

 for generations preceding. In a " Statement for the Pro- 

 prietors in Scotland who hold Crown grants of Salmon 

 Fisheries in the Sea," laid before Parliament in 1861, it 

 was said : " It is impossible to fish with profit in the 

 sea in Scotland except with fixed nets ; " and again : 

 "The suppression of every kind of fixed nets is a prac- 

 tical destruction and confiscation of the rights of those 

 who possess Crown grants of salmon-fishing in the sea ; 

 and sea-coast proprietors would be deprived by the Bill 

 of every available mode of fishing." Every man who said 

 this, or had it said on his behalf, had acquired his rights 



