52 



ing from the competing interests of persons or communities, 

 who had habitually pursued different and probably inferior 

 systems ; and occasionally originating in some old established 

 prejudices or assumed peculiar rights. 



" These positions will be further explained, and, we trust, 

 the propriety of the yiew we took justified, in reporting on 

 some particulars of our proceedings. 



" We wish the reasons for the extent to which we have 

 declined interference to be understood, because it is one which 

 has drawn upon US some remonstrances, and in which our pro- 

 ceedings seem not to be approved of by many bodies of persons 

 engaged in the Fisheries, and by many most respectable as well 

 as influential personages. 



" As an instance of what has been required of us, may be 

 given, an application from a body of gentlemen on a part of 

 the coast, who formed a Society for the meritorious object of 

 preserving order, and assisting the fisheries of the neighbour- 

 hood by local encouragement and regulations. 



" The desire of the Society was, that we should send down, 

 some person connected with our office to co-operate, advise, and 

 assist in their general arrangements, 



" We declined to comply with this request, because we con- 

 sidered that gentlemen resident on the spot would be far better 

 judges of what would be necessary, than any officer of ours 

 could be : there could be no difficulty in understanding the 

 law, which is precise, or if otherwise, it is seldom that we or 

 our officers can venture to interpret it ; and such a proceeding 

 would lead to a degree of Government interference and respon- 

 sibility, that we neither considered politic nor in compliance 

 with the purport of the Act. 



" Such a precedent, also, being established, would of course 

 have led to similar applications from other quarters, and the Go- 

 vernment would have found itself involved in the responsibility, 

 and the employment, perhaps, of all the local arrangements 

 and details of the Fisheries." 



This inference, and the deduction, are not very clear. 



It is to he hoped that this, was the only case of refusal to 

 comply with a very natural request for counsel and instruction ; 

 the non-compliance with which must have been disheartening, 

 and is unquestionably not in accordance with the spirit of the 

 enactment, which (in the lllth section) empowers the holding 

 of general Meetings of proprietors of fisheries in any district, 

 for inquiry into the state of the fisheries, " and the best 

 means to be adopted for the regulation, improvement, or protec- 

 tion thereof," thus providing advice and guidance, at the least, 

 to encourage local exertion in a praiseworthy object. As 

 it is not stated that the applicants were not " proprietors of 



