33 



on the system of fishing which was now so successful, 

 namely, employing bigger boats, bigger nets, more of them, 

 and going out sixty, seventy, or a hundred miles to sea, 

 and catching the herrings before they came into the small 

 bays, these came to the conclusion that it was practically 

 useless, if not mischievous, to make such laws as those 

 who had little boats and depended on fishing in the 

 small inland lakes demanded. He was not prepared to 

 say that the gentlemen from Canada were wrong in saying 

 that it would be perhaps dangerous to do away with 

 restrictions there ; but it must be borne in mind, that large 

 as the Canadian lakes were, they were different from the 

 Atlantic ocean, and whilst restrictions in Canada might be 

 useful, it did not follow that such restrictions would be of 

 any use when dealing with such a large space of water as 

 the Atlantic. There was just one omission in Mr. Duffs com- 

 prehensive paper which he should like to bring under the 

 notice of the many eminent men whom he was glad to see 

 were taking a practical interest in this matter. Hardly any 

 reference was made to the fishing on the west, coast of 

 Scotland, a comparatively new enterprise, which was carried 

 on in the open sea. There had been for many years from 

 l,ooo to 2,000 boats engaged in that way, not in the Loch 

 Earne, not in the Firth of Clyde, but out from the outer 

 Hebrides into the Atlantic. They began to get fish there 

 on the 24th of May, and continued up to the present time, 

 and a very large quantity was caught there. The facilities 

 for sending it to market, however, were very bad indeed. 

 One fact would show the extent of that fishing industry. 

 In a Parliamentary paper submitted to the House of 

 Commons not long ago, it appeared that from the rail- 

 way station at Oban, three times as much fish was des- 

 patched as from any other station. Upwards of 12,000 



[2] D 



