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In the session of 1844, the Constabulary were empowered to 

 enforce certain provisions for protection. The services of this 

 force, the right arm of the Law in Ireland, (a body of men of 

 whom we may well be proud, proving what our countrymen be- 

 come when educated and disciplined,) are of the first consequence 

 for insuring its enforcement with regard to the Inland fisheries. 



In August, 1845, power was given to appoint an additional 

 Commissioner of fisheries, to which office one of the two inspec- 

 tors was promoted, whose vacancy was soon after filled up. 



The Third Annual Report is dated 13th May, 1845. In con- 

 sequence of repeated and urgent applications, a series of meet- 

 ings were held throughout the country, with the useful objects 

 of inquiry as regarded the Close Season, explaining the practical 

 provisions and policy of the statute, with a view to elicit co-ope- 

 ration in carrying them out, and acquiring statistical and other 

 information. The extracts from this Report may be condensed 

 consistently with exhibiting the matured opinions of the Com- 

 missioners as to the best means of improvement. It premises 

 that the salmon fisheries admitted of improvement to an extent 

 far surpassing their present amount of production. With respect 

 to protection, the recent aid of the police and coast guard was 

 expected partly to remedy the want of co-operation among the 

 parties interested, but the necessity for assessment to pro- 

 vide sufficient funds for this purpose is forcibly set forth in the 

 ensuing passages. 



" In the great majority of cases, however, the evidence goes 

 to establish the existence of a most unwise and short-sighted 

 course of proceeding on the part of those most interested in 

 the Salmon Fisheries. We allude to the numerous and increas- 

 ing class of persons who fish with stake-weirs, bag-nets, and 

 draught-nets, 011 the sea coast, and in the estuaries, (and in 

 some remarkable instances, to the proprietors of great fisheries 

 near the mouths of rivers,) who, from being the parties that 

 derive by far the largest and first part of the benefit arising 

 from protection, and in fact, holding the commercially valuable 

 portion of the fisheries, ought naturally to be expected to take 

 the most active part in securing protection for the spawning- 

 ground, making passes for the free migration of fish, and 

 enforcing the observance of the weekly close time and the 

 other provisions of the Act, with a view to the improvement of 

 their own property and interests; yet it appears that, almost 

 without exception, they have not contributed in any way to the 

 furtherance of these essential objects. 



" The benefit anticipated from the observance of a weekly 

 close-time has stimulated the proprietors on the upper parts of 

 a few rivers in Ireland to form associations for the protection 

 of the fisheries ; but having as yet no money value in them, and 



