85 



"Without expressing any farther opinion on this subject, 

 your Committee have here again occasion to remark, that the 

 ambiguity of the language of the provisions contained in that 

 Act, by which the use of such engines is in certain cases per- 

 mitted in the tideways of rivers and estuaries, especially when 

 taken in connexion with the express reservation of public rights, 

 made by the same enactment, has occasioned much litigation 

 among parties, and uncertainty in the administration of the 

 law." 



The word ' established' is stated not to be a legal term as 

 applicable to the undisputed possession and working of a stake- 

 weir; it would seem that an uninterrupted use was probably 

 intended. 



II. PRIVATE RIGHTS. DEFINED TITLES. The appointment of 

 a temporary Commission, the effect of which would be to give 

 secure defined titles to owners of ' several' fisheries, or private 

 rights of fishing, so as to preclude future litigation, by settling 

 all disputed questions as between the public and private parties. 

 To act as the Inclosure commission does in England, or as the 

 Encumbered Estates commission is now proceeding in Ireland, 

 To determine the existence or non-existence, the legality or 

 illegality of the right claimed, and to define and register the 

 titles proved. These would then be held indefeasible and 

 inviolate. There are precedents for the appointment of similar 

 ' Courts of Claims' in both countries. 



The Commission would not interfere for the purpose of giving 

 title to private rights, nor inquire into the descent or personality 

 of the title, but its effects would be to establish more firmly all 

 that were legitimate. Their future encroachment on public 

 privileges, or, on the other hand, encroachment by trespassers 

 upon them, would be repressed, and not dependent on a doubtful 

 trial at common law. The law might then reasonably arm the 

 parties interested with larger powers to protect those rights ; 

 or the summary power, in the 41st section of 11 & 12 Vic- 

 toria, for punishing trespass on well defined ' several' fisheries 

 is perhaps all that would be required. The law would thereby 

 further prevent the spoliation of private rights. 



Claims not brought before, or uninvestigated by the Commis- 

 sion, would remain in statu quo. Appeal would be given from 

 the award or decision of the Commission to a higher Court.* 



* PRIVATE RIGHTS The Act, by repealing almost all former Acts, has thrown 

 questions of property into confusion. Not only the public are deterred from 

 prosecutions, but even lawful proprietors are deterred from instituting such 

 proceedings as might elicit consequent defects in their own titles. The decision 

 of questions of private rights, frequently assumed* and frequently questionable, 



a ' Above all things nothing is more to be deplored than the undefined state of the law 

 ia regard to claims of " several 11 fisheries ; in many cases there are the most preposterous 

 attempts at usurpation, and in others habitual encroachments upon private rights, Loth 



