234 THE SALMON. 



brought against it has proceeded upon a misunderstand- 

 ing. Thus, it has been objected to as if necessarily 

 meaning the erection of one engine capable of capturing 

 or passing at will whatever might be thought the proper 

 proportion of fish to capture or to pass a proportion 

 which could be measured either by time or number. In 

 many rivers there are insuperable natural difficulties in 

 the way of erecting such an engine, but the substance or 

 principle of the proposal is simply, that no more ma- 

 chinery should be used than is necessary, or than would 

 be used if one man owned the whole river ; and there is 

 plenty of room between one engine, and one hundred 

 doing the work which could be as well or better done by 

 a dozen. Nothing has been said, or is likely to be said, 

 in disproof of the truth, that one effect of such a reform 

 would be a grea.t saving of expense in wages and mate- 

 rials, which at present seem to amount, on the chief 

 fisheries, to nearly three-fourths of the total value of the 

 produce ; and that a still grander result would be, the 

 putting an end to wasteful strife, opening up a free field 

 for amicable co-operation, and making simple a hundred 

 questions which are now complex, by transforming, at 

 one stroke, the contending parties from competitors to 

 partners. In a word, it would introduce into the pisca- 

 torial realms the three great, well-known, and much- 

 coveted benefits of Peace, Reform, and Retrenchment. 



THE END. 



