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law to sanction their erection. Others extend beyond low water mark, 

 and many of them materially, we believe, interfere with navigation. 



We feel it to be our duty also to represent to the Board an abuse of 

 a different description, or perhaps, more properly speaking, a violation 

 of the law, attributable, we regret to be obliged to add, to some persons 

 of high station. 



Under the provisions of 5 & 6 Vic., c. 106, sees. 18 and 19, no per- 

 sons are authorized to erect stake weirs or bag nets, except the occu- 

 piers of land adjoining the coast where they may be placed, or the 

 owners of several fisheries, under certain regulations and restrictions, 

 and 8 & 9 Vic., c. 108, sec. 5, subjects to penalty and forfeiture of 

 net, any persons erecting or using such, " other than the persons 

 entitled to exercise such right under the provisions of the first-recited 

 Act;" arid notwithstanding this clear and distinct provision, by which 

 the Legislature intended to give a privilege to use a certain description 

 of engine for fishing, to the occupiers of land adjoining the coasts and 

 estuaries, many proprietors of estates have let the shores of their pro- 

 perties to persons occupying no land in the locality, and coming from 

 distant parts of the country, thus depriving their tenants of the ad- 

 vantages intended for them, and them only, by the law of the land, 

 and turning the profits to their own account, and this practice, which 

 exists to a great extent, has naturally much increased the hostility to 

 stake weirs. The public generally object to them as encroachments 

 upon their common rights, while the occupiers of land feel that their 

 privileges under the statute also are illegally denied them, being trans- 

 ferred to others by those who have no legal power to do so, but with 

 whom humble persons cannot well contend, from the dependent posi- 

 tion in which they are placed. 



This is an abuse which we think should be suppressed through the 

 constituted authorities, by prosecuting all persons using stake weirs 

 who are not entitled to do so, as occupiers of land; for the aggrieved 

 parties cannot venture themselves to come forward ; and in addition 

 to this individual injustice, the effect upon the fisheries generally is 

 bad in rendering those persons who live upon the lands adjoining the 

 coasts and shores of tidal rivers, reckless with regard to protecting the 

 fisheries, or obeying the laws relative to them, and who might natu- 

 rally be taught to feel a disposition to do so if they were allowed to 

 avail themselves of the beneficial interests attaching to the use of stake 

 weirs, to which they are legally entitled if any one be. 



CLOSE SEASON. Many applications have been recently made to alter 

 the close season, but we have felt it unnecessary to bring them under 

 the consideration of the Board, acting upon the decision which was 

 previously made of deferring to make any change until the boards of 

 conservators shall be formed, and through whom the general interests 

 of the several districts will be represented. 



PRODUCTIVENESS. We have no means of obtaining an account of the 

 aggregate annual value of the salmon fisheries, and therefore cannot 

 state accurately the comparative produce of the past season with that 

 of any other, but from all the information we could obtain, we believe 

 that last season was not an abundant one. 



GENERAL REMARKS. Having been associated with the. Commis- 

 sioners of Public Works, as Commissioners of Fisheries, by the Act of 



M2 



