198 THE SALMON. 



strength is, to say the least, no greater than it was, whilst 

 the strength on the right side has become greater, both by 

 the discussions that have taken place, and by the actual 

 advances made in recent legislation. Formerly the de- 

 mand was that an evil existing in all the Three King- 

 doms should be put down just because it was an evil, 

 and, as the old Scotch Statutes had it, was an evil " de- 

 structive of the commoun weill." But now, in addition, 

 we can raise the cry of "justice to Scotland" can com- 

 plain that the Scotch proprietors and public are refused 

 the justice which has lately been accorded to England 

 and even to Ireland. Remembering, however, the feeble 

 and straggling support and the vigorous and compact 

 resistance which the Lord Advocate found when he 

 brought in his Bill of 1861, it may be doubted whether 

 the Government could, in the meanwhile, be induced to 

 renew a proposition which made so many enemies, and 

 attracted so few and such captious friends. It is there- 

 fore of the more importance to inquire whether there is 

 not some possibility of settling the question without 

 legislation ; or, to come to the point at once, by the 

 Crown, as the owner of the fisheries on all the ungranted 

 coasts, forcing or frightening the fixture-fishers on the 

 granted coast into submission, by threatening, and 

 threatening in earnest, to grant or lease the whole un- 

 granted coast to new competitors. The Scottish sea- 

 coasts, as to salmon-fishery, may, or lately might, be 

 viewed as divided into three parts a part which the 

 Crown had granted away, and which was fished in a way 

 the Crown never contemplated, and which the law never 

 sanctioned, though it may accidentally have omitted to 



