4 THE SALMON RIVERS OF SCOTLAND 



this is clearly not the place where more or less delicate matter 

 of this kind can be fully dealt with. Most valuable interests 

 are frequently involved, and although my chief desire is to 

 support and improve our salmon fisheries, I do not go so far 

 as to say that all other interests must be regarded as subservient 

 to them. But, at the same time, I feel that to deal in a really 

 useful way with the particular features of each salmon river, 

 it is necessary to notice features which I conceive to be adverse 

 to the best interests of the rivers, many of which have already 

 for the most part been dealt with by me in a series of reports 

 bound in blue paper covers, and therefore only to be regarded, 

 I presume, as ordinary waste paper. 



The broad lines of salmon fishery improvement have been of 

 late years pretty generally recognised. The service rendered 

 to the country by the Elgin Commission on Salmon Fisheries 

 is far greater than most people suppose. Never was there so 

 enlightened and so complete a review of the whole situation, 

 so definite and so thorough a grasp of what is most needed for 

 the conservation and improvement of the salmon interests. 

 Unhappily as yet no practical result has been attained there- 

 from, but I venture to think it is very certain that when 

 legislation does come about, it is bound to follow the general 

 lines laid down by the Royal Commission Report referred to. 

 The reduction of netting in narrow waters where fish congregate 

 before ascending to their natural spawning grounds ; the 

 opening up of barriers to ascent ; the adjusting of the weekly 

 close time ; the purification of pollutions ; the wider control 

 of District Fishery Boards and of the Supervising Central 

 Authority ; and a considerable number of lesser points depend- 

 ent therefrom, are all necessities which the experience of 

 half a century of our present salmon acts and the changed 

 conditions of our salmon fisheries have clearly enough 

 demonstrated. 



Some writers have ventured to give to the world what in my 

 humble opinion are rather ill-digested theories, and to denounce 

 in rather wholesale fashion this or that particular kind of 

 netting or poaching practice, or to attach perhaps very undue 

 importance to some system of improvement, coupling their 

 statements with the assurance that if their particular views 

 were acted upon usually regardless of cost wonderful results 



