83 



interests as now existing, whether common or private; and, 

 thirdly, such equitable regulation of the powers of taking an in- 

 definite article of property, as will most conduce to the primary 

 object. For the establishing that important principle of co- 

 operation and unanimity between the different parties interested 

 in the river, fisheries of Ireland, so necessary to their mutual 

 advantage, and the only foundation for raising them to their 

 full value, it is essential that the settlement of the questions 

 involving a fair distribution, to be lasting and valuable, should 

 be equitable. 



The Statute of 5 & 6 Vic., passed to regulate the discordant 

 interests, might have originally been deemed an unjust and 

 one-sided measure by those opposed to the use of improved 

 means of capture, available only to a circumscribed number, 

 and by which many would be injured by their legalization and 

 consequent increase. It may now be strictly said to have be- 

 come so by the inoperation of many of the provisions which 

 were to have acted in compensation for the encroachment 

 affecting the majority. Its effects were to multiply the most 

 powerful and exclusive modes of capture, while its provisions 

 failed to augment or improve the means of production for the 

 general good. 



To reconsider the entire question to apply to it that 

 'lengthy and philosophical course of independent investiga- 

 tions,' which the Commissioners of Inquiry deemed requisite 

 ' for the attainment of fixed bases for legislation,' to advocate 

 a restoration of the principles of the Great Charter,* and a 

 repeal of the recent Act, on the ground of the unsoundness of 

 its policy, cannot now be proposed. A retrograde movement 

 is not for the present age. A step in a wrong direction will 

 be often best retrieved, not by undoing the past, but by pro- 

 viding for the future. It will now be the part of the Legisla- 

 ture to re-adjust the disturbed balance, by a righteous limita- 

 tion of exclusive powers ; by authorizing the protection of the 

 Crown for the rights of the subjects ; by facilitating access to 



* A forgetfulness of former statutes is sometimes observable in our laws. That 

 their principles are made partly obsolete there is an instance in the present Poor 

 Laws, in which the salutary intent of the statute of Elizabeth, of providing work 

 for those who would eat, is not sufficiently fulfilled. It has been questioned 

 whether the Irish Fishery Act of 1842 has not repealed Magna Charta, in so 

 far as it relates to fisheries. It violates its spirit, by confirming and creating 

 exclusive rights in rivers, and revoking the Acts of Charles I. and George III., 

 which went to confirm the just jealousy of the Great Charter, and of subse- 

 quent statutes, as to undue powers of monopoly. 



' The parties framing that Act have unconsciously repealed the old statute 

 law ; they have very probably repealed Magna Charta. Judge Perrin sug- 

 gested this at the trial of Regan's case.' Evidence of Counsellor Alcock, pp. 465, 

 495. 



' In my opinion, the statute of Magna Charta has not been repealed by the 

 5 & 6 Victoria.' Baron Pennefathefs Charge, 1847. Appendix, p. 84. 



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