NON-LEGISLATIVE REMEDIES. 233 



the law, being too weak and loose to enforce submission 

 to arrangements for the general good, could only prohibit 

 whatever would give a local or individual monopoly, and 

 then abandon all to the barbarous and wasteful system 

 of " catch who can." But circumstances have now 

 changed, and the road to a rational method is open to us. 

 The absolute and relative value of every salmon- fishing 

 property being now pretty well ascertained, the propor- 

 tion which the share of each proprietor bears to the whole 

 of his river or district can be settled by arbitration and 

 evidence, and that, of course, would be the proportion 

 which he should draw from the one common or general 

 fishery. In making such an arrangement, some men 

 would doubtless think that they had been allotted less 

 than their share ; but even if any man were, according to 

 his own estimate, made worse off proportionally, he would 

 nevertheless be better off positively ; he might be able 

 to think himself not so much benefited as his neighbours, 

 but he would not be able to deny that he too had bene- 

 fited, and the public with him. 



It is now more than a dozen years since this radical 

 reform was propounded ; and a similar suggestion (of 

 which we were not then aware) was made privately, so 

 long ago as 1839, by Mr. Thomson of Banchory, who 

 proposed to his brother-proprietors on the Aberdeen- 

 shire Dee that they should form themselves into " one 

 fishing company," and fish the river for the common 

 benefit, as near the mouth as practicable, with as few 

 engines as might be found sufficient. But up to this 

 hour the plan has only been smiled at or sneered at as 

 a chimera, although any specific or tangible objection 



