24 



The subsequent legislation upon Salmon Fisheries, and the 

 system pursued in their control, appear to have received a bias 

 from the line of policy sketched out in the " Suggestions." If it 

 can be clearly shown that such bias has proved detrimental and 

 paralyzing to the main intention of the Inquiry that of further- 

 ing improvement this labour will not be in vain, and a hope 

 may be entertained that a course of legislation and administra- 

 tion adapted to the peculiar nature of the circumstances may 

 be somewhat promoted by it. 



The object of ' catching as great a quantity of fish as can be 

 taken, without the risk of producing scarcity in succeeding 

 years,' so judiciously set forth in the " Suggestions" as the 

 main one in application to the Sea, and ' the interest of the 

 public in a maximum supply of fish,' alluded to in the Report, 

 are considerations which appear to have too far influenced the 

 adjustment of the question of permitting the use of improved 

 methods of taking fish in Rivers at a subsequent time, when 

 those clauses were introduced into the general measure by 

 which the use of the Scotch stake-net, and other powerful 

 engines, recently so multiplied in our estuaries and on the sea 

 coasts, was legalized or facilitated.* It may be remarked, that 

 a fair mode of using trawl and trammel nets in the open sea, 

 the improved methods applicable to the trade of sea fishing, 

 might well be permitted to any of the public prosecuting it ; 

 while the only impediment to fishermen availing themselves of 

 the removal of restrictions would be the want of means to pur- 

 chase such nets : but the privilege of using or erecting the 

 improved modes by fixed nets in rivers, estuaries, or on the sea 

 coasts, was necessarily confined by the act to a small class, the 

 owners and occupiers of the adjoining land, whose employment 

 of those modes must immediately diminish the public fishery, 

 and all other rights higher up the stream, to the impoverish- 

 ment of the original followers of the calling, who have no 

 power to avail themselves of such modes. A hostile feeling is 

 consequently created between opposed classes. 



* This would appear on reference to the First Report of the Board of Works, 

 as Commissioners of Fisheries, following the enactment of the new measure for 

 the regulation of the fisheries. They state: "The endeavour in framing the 

 act has evidently been, to open the modes of fishing in such a manner as to admit 

 of the greatest supply of fish being obtained by the public ; while each should 

 be under such partial restrictions as might tend to the preservation and in- 

 crease of the breed, and enable all those who could reasonably claim the right, 

 to participate in the fishery in a greater degree than they had ever done pre- 

 viously." This is referred to in the report of 1849, as "the sound commercial 

 principle on which the Act 5 & 6 Viet. cap. 106, was founded." And, again, 

 " this act, whilst it provided, as a matter of police, regulations for the guidance 

 of different modes of fishing, aimed mainly at the increase of the quantity of 

 fish by stringent provisions for close time and protection in breeding ; and con- 

 templated, irrespective of parties and classes, the capture of the ' largest quan- 

 tities of fish in the best condition during the open season, consistently with the 

 increase of the species.'" 



