154 



25 saves the right to erect head-\veirs in narrow portions of rivers, to 

 parties legally entitled by charter or prescriptive right ; and section 



26 saves the right to extend such weirs beyond low-water mark. Here 

 again occurs a more embarrassing point, with regard to navigation, 

 than even in the case of stake-weirs, because the extension beyond low 

 water mark necessarily involves a more decided and material obstruc- 

 tion to Navigation. 



Taking a broad view of the question of Stake-Weirs, we think that 

 any benefit which might accrue to the community at large by enabling 

 a certain class of persons, limited in number, to use engines of this 

 description, upon the assumption that a greater quantity of fish, in the 

 aggregate would be captured and which we very much doubt would 

 be the result is far more than overbalanced by the means of employ- 

 ment to thousands afforded by fishing being cut off, while the industry 

 of the lower classes who ply with small craft within our harbours and 

 tideways is also greatly crippled, and injuriously interfered with; and 

 upon these grounds we think it would have been more consistent with 

 sound principles of political economy, as well as of public justice, not 

 to have gone further in legalizing Stake and Bag nets, than sanctioning 

 their use upon the open coasts, outside the mouths of harbours and estu- 

 aries, where other means cannot be used so effectively, and where small 

 craft do not ply in any considerable number. We further submit, that 

 upon other considerations, the state of the law as it exists is objection- 

 able, and its provisions quite inconsistent one with the other, and that 

 it has a bad tendency upon the public mind; for that while, in one 

 sense, as relates to fishing, stake-weirs, under the provisions of 5 & 6 

 Yic., may be legal in certain portions of harbours and estuaries over 

 three-fourths of a mile wide, in another sense they may not be so, and 

 cannot become so by any length of time, as regards navigation. Hence 

 they can only be maintained by sufferance of the public, and are likely 

 to perpetuate a fruitful source of dispute between antagonistic interests 

 the power of wealth and station perhaps too often prevailing against 

 the humbler classes, who can only be taught to respect and obey the 

 laws, by knowing that they are uniformly and impartially adminis- 

 tered. 



MOUTHS OF RIVERS. Section 22 provides that stake-nets shall not be 

 placed in mouths of narrow rivers, or within one statute mile seaward 

 or inwards, and empowers Commissioners to define mouths. Section 



27 provides that draft-nets shall not be used in mouths of narrow- 

 rivers, or within half a mile seaward. Provides also, that nets shall 

 not be drawn or stretched entirely across the mouth, or any other part 

 of any river. 



REMARKS. We consider the law requires amendment in these re- 

 spects : 



1st. With respect to the prohibition to use draft-nets within half a 

 mile seaward of the mouths of rivers, the Commissioners should be left 

 a discretionary power to prohibit the use of such nets, also inwards in 

 some narrow rivers. The object of the law, which is to permit a portion 

 of the fish to ascend the fresh water, is defeated for want of this power, 

 as persons can come inside the mouths of rivers, and use such nets, in 

 a manner very injurious to the fisheries generally. To this exception 



