SALMON FISHERY OF SCOTLAND. 9 



case and that which these learned persons supposed, for the 

 purpose, it may be presumed, of illustrating it. Indeed it 

 seems never to have occurred to them, that such a combination 

 as that implied in the supposition is as impracticable as it is 

 absurd. If one farmer raises a superior crop, another may do 

 the same. Each looks to his own interest; his object is to 

 raise as much grain as possible himself, whatever others may 

 do ; and he knows that he must take his chance of prices. The 

 idea of combination, in such a case, is utterly ludicrous. In 

 the same way, what haddock or herring fisher ever thought of 

 preventing others from fishing, that the price of his capture 

 might thereby be enhanced ? The thing would never enter his 

 imagination except as the subject of a jest, and even in that 

 case would speedily be dismissed as a very stupid one. But if 

 the operations of one set of farmers or haddock-fishers were of 

 such a nature as to interfere materially with those of another, 

 and to diminish, in a great degree, the product of their labours, 

 as well as to neutralise a large portion of the capital invested in 

 their respective employments, a new and very different ques- 

 tion would arise, namely, whether such interference was con- 

 sistent with that equal protection which is due to all kinds of 

 property, and whether one man is entitled to avail himself of 

 the advantages of a peculiar situation to enhance the value of 

 his own property at the expense of his neighbour's, or, which 

 comes to the same thing, to the utter destruction of rights 

 secured to the latter by unchallenged titles, and exercised by 

 him from time immemorial. Now, this is precisely the matter 

 at issue between the stake-net men and the river proprietors. 

 The question is not, whether two men shall fish where there is 

 unlimited abundance, and no possible interference of rights or 

 pretensions ; but whether one shall fish in such a manner that 

 the other shall not fish at all', although his title be at least 

 equally good, and the exercise of his right fortified, perhaps, by 

 ten consecutive prescriptions. 



Were salmon like sea fishes, the stake-net owners would, in 

 that case, have some reason to complain of the opposition of 

 the river heritors, and of the hardship of not being allowed to 

 kill salmon as they might kill cod, haddocks, or herrings. But 



