24 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY CHAP, n 



Early in 1881, Sir William Harcourt appointed Professor 

 Huxley one of Her Majesty's Inspectors of Fisheries. The 

 office had become vacant through the untimely death, in the 

 preceding December, of the late Mr. Frank Buckland. Under 

 an Act, passed twenty years before, the charge of the English 

 Salmon Fisheries had been placed under the Home Office, and 

 the Secretary of State had been authorised to appoint two In- 

 spectors to aid him in administering the law. The functions of 

 the Home Office and of the Inspectors were originally simple, 

 but they had been enlarged by an Act passed in 1873, which 

 conferred on local conservators elaborate powers of making 

 bye-laws for the development and preservation of the Fisheries. 

 These bye-laws required the approval of the Secretary of State, 

 who was necessarily dependent on the advice of his Inspectors 

 in either allowing or disallowing them. 



In addition to the nominal duties of the Inspectors, they 

 became by virtue of their position the advisers of the Govern- 

 ment on all questions connected with the Sea Fisheries of Great 

 Britain. These fisheries are nominally under the Board of 

 Trade, but, as this Board at that time had no machinery at its 

 disposal for the purpose, it naturally relied on the advice of the 

 Home Office Inspectors in all questions of difficulty, on which 

 their experience enabled them to speak with authority. 



For duties such as these, which have been thus briefly de- 

 scribed, Professor Huxley had obvious qualifications. On all 

 subjects relating to the Natural History of Fish he spoke with 

 decisive authority. But, in addition to his scientific attain- 

 ments, from 1863 to 1865 he had been a member of the Com- 

 mission which had conducted an elaborate investigation into 

 the condition of the Fisheries of the United Kingdom, and had 

 taken a large share in the preparation of a Report, which not- 

 withstanding recent changes in law and policy remains the 

 ablest and most exhaustive document which has ever been laid 

 before Parliament on the subject. 



This protracted investigation had convinced Professor Hux- 

 ley that the supply of fish in the deep sea was practically inex- 

 haustible; and that, however much it might be necessary to 

 enforce the police of the seas by protecting particular classes 

 of sea fishermen from injury done to their instruments by the 

 operations of other classes, the primary duty of the legislature 

 was to develop sea fishing, and not to place restrictions on sea 

 fishermen for any fears of an exhaustion of fish. 



His scientific training, moreover, made him ridicule the 



