93 



to use weirs and stake-nets, bag-nets, and other fixed nets, 

 for the purpose of catching Salmon in the sea and tideways along the 

 coast of Ireland, and it is necessary to declare and define such rights/ 

 enacts it lawful for any person legally possessed of, or entitled to any 

 several fishery in or along any estuary or part of the sea coast, to fix 

 or erect, or authorize or empower any lessee or assignee to erect the 

 same within the limits thereof. 



The 19th section makes it lawful for every person who shall hold and 

 occupy as tenant in fee simple or in fee tail, or as tenant for life, or as 

 tenant under any lease for a life or lives, or as tenant for a term of 

 years, of which not less than fourteen years shall be unexpired at the 

 time of first erecting such net, any land adjoining the sea shore, or any 

 estuary, not being within the limits of a several fishery, but subject to 

 the provisions of the Act, and to such regulations and restrictions as 

 may be made by the said Commissioners as aforesaid, to fix and erect 

 such stake-net or other fixed nets as aforesaid, attached to that part of 

 the shore adjoining such land : Provided always, that no tenant under 

 any lease for a life or lives determinable, or for years, of which less 

 than one hundred shall be unexpired, shall be empowered to fix or erect 

 such stake-nets, or other fixed nets as aforesaid, without the previous 

 consent in writing of the chief landlord or lessor seised of any rent and 

 reversion in such land ; and provided also, that the placing or erection 

 of such stake-nets, or other fixed nets as aforesaid, shall not give or 

 confer any ri<jht or title to the occupancy of the said share (except for 

 the purpose of attaching the said fixed nets thereto, during such occu- 

 pancy of the land as aforesaid) \ saving to the public the free and full 

 exercise and enjoyment of all other rights of fishing, or other rights 

 whatsoever, in or along the said sea shore or coast, or the shore of such 

 estuary as aforesaid, subject to the provisions herein contained. 



This last section only empowers the occupier of land to use such 

 fixed engines. The effects were greatly to abridge the former powers 

 of the public to take fish, by legalizing the use of fixed engines in 

 localities in which a ' several' or exclusive right of fishing did not 

 obtain, and thus creating a new power to employ a most efficient 

 novel means for capture. It narrowed the privilege to a certain class 

 occupiers of land. But while it gives the privilege to the landlord 

 only when occupier, and extends it to the tenant for fourteen years 

 unexpired, it makes the tenant dependent on consent of the land- 

 owner, (unless he possesses a lease of which one hundred years are 

 unexpired,) who can thus require a rent for that permission ;* in 



* Adam Smith notices the very few instances in which rent constitutes part 

 of the price of sea fish, thereby enhancing the price of the commodity to the 

 consumer. The new measure enabled landowners on the sea coasts and estu- 

 aries to receive rent for a fish, from which, as bred and preserved in rivers, 

 those of the interior are more entitled to receive any such return. "The 

 power given by the Act to erect stake-weirs has been greatly abused by the pro- 

 prietors, who, instead of giving them to their tenants, have brought strangers 

 in, and received rents from those strangers. In addition to that, it greatly 

 restricts the public right of fishing with draught-nets, which affects very mate- 

 rially the tenantry of those landlords ; and we find by the evidence in the 

 Fourth Report, taken upon oath, that in 1842, and upon the passing of the Act, 

 the tenants were deprived of those weirs, and they were let to strangers.". 

 Evidence, p. 301. 



