section that Mr. de Caux wishes to enforce. They say: 

 " In many cases a net below the standard size is in use ; 

 but the fishermen are finding that the small mesh is not 

 profitable, as only the nose of the larger fish gets into it, 

 and unless they get past the gills they are not effectually 

 caught. The matter does not seem to be one suitable for 

 public regulation, and had much better be left to the 

 fishermen themselves. We therefore recommend the repeal 

 of Sec. 12 of 48 Geo. III., Chap, no." 



Legislators received some very wholesome advice from 

 Professor Huxley at the close of his opening address, 

 when he said : " I think that the man who has made the 

 unnecessary law deserves a heavier punishment than the 

 man who breaks it." Now, although some of the laws we 

 have passed to regulate our Herring Fisheries have been 

 harmless, except for bringing the law into contempt, yet 

 this cannot be said of all our restrictive legislation, as the 

 Sea Fisheries Commission of '66 describes the effect of the 

 close time established by Parliament on the West Coast of 

 Scotland, as "reducing the population of some of the 

 Western Islands to misery and starvation, while abundant 

 food was lying in front of their doors, by preventing them 

 taking herrings." Surely Parliament can be better em- 

 ployed than by mischievous legislation, producing such 

 vexatious results. 



The statistics I have quoted indicate the general pros- 

 perity of the Scotch Herring Fisheries, but this general 

 conclusion must be accepted with some qualification. The 

 Commissioners of 1878 remark that the so-called prosperity 

 is almost entirely due to the extraordinary development of 

 the fisheries off the Aberdeenshire coast ; and if the takes 

 between Fraserburgh and Montrose be deducted, the con- 

 dition of the other fisheries will be found to be much less 



