76 



equitable share during the open season as will create a lively 

 interest above, and therefore the desire to continue and in- 

 crease it. 



By continuing these extracts the views of the Commissioners 

 will be "given, and it may be conjectured from them that ' non- 

 interference' will still be overstrained in carrying out the law, 

 as the ' commercial object' was in framing it. 



" In concluding this important subject, we beg again to ex- 



Eress our conviction, that upon carrying into steady effect the 

 jading principles of the law of 1842, Act 5 & 6 Vic., cap. 106, 

 with those we have had the honour to submit for consideration 

 in our annual reports, mainly depends the avoidance of injury 

 to the Fisheries, if not their increase and prosperity ; and that 

 on subjects where local and individual interests are often so 

 much at variance with the general and public weal, where po- 

 pular knowledge is so very imperfect, and consequently leaves 

 so much latitude for speculative opinion, sound conclusions can 

 only safely be formed on data dispassionately collected without 

 predilections for peculiar mysteries of doctrine, modes of fish- 

 ing, or personal considerations. 



" We would respectfully illustrate our view by reference to 

 the Act 9 & 10 Vic., cap. 114, the bill for which was prepared 

 and submitted to Parliament in accordance with, and to carry 

 into effect, the recommendations contained in our fourth annual 

 report as to close seasons, recommendations founded on the 

 result of two years' inquiry, and a mass of evidence printed in 

 the report. Yet, in the passage of the Bill through the House, 

 a clause was introduced, whereby eight counties were exempted 

 from the operation of the law, which has produced the most 

 extraordinary confusion; and we have had applications from 

 nearly all these counties to extend to them, by by-law, the 

 benefits from which they were excluded by this clause" 



SALMON AND TROUT FISHERIES. Under this head the injury 

 they sustained, as noticed last year, is adverted to, as occasioned 

 by causes issuing from the pressure of the famine. Others are 

 also adduced, such as the non-observance of the close season 

 increased want of co-operation to protect the breeding ground, 

 the attention of the constabulary and of all other parties having 

 been directed to the more onerous duties of the times ; open 

 breaches of the law by persons of station, the overt re-erection 

 of stake-weirs, the use of machines for the capture of fish in 

 mills and factories, the placing of iron spikes across the free 

 pass or queen's share in solid weirs, and angling practised by 

 persons of the better order in the close season. 



These offences, often only punished by nominal fines, and the 

 general neglect of the law, were considered by the Commis- 

 sioners to render it hopeless to expect that isolated acts of 



