128 SALMON BRITISH AND COLONIAL. 



it. They might no doubt have derived a larger re- 

 venue from the fishings already, if it had been intended 

 to view them simply as a source of revenue ; but, with 

 the express object of preventing that being done, the 

 course taken has been to grant leases, since the deci- 

 sion in Gammell's case, only for a term of three years, 

 subject to express notice that the grantees should take 

 subject to any alterations that Parliament should make 

 in the mean time." 



Unless the stake-net proprietors advocate the absurd 

 theory that six hundred distinct fisheries for salmon 

 shall be conducted as they please, irrespective of all 

 questions concerning the habits of the fish and the in- 

 terests of the public, they should not have objected to 

 investigation in the reasonable spirit indicated by Mr 

 Watson. And when the result of investigation before 

 committees both of Lords and Commons, as well as 

 before a Koyal Commission, was the production of a con- 

 viction that it was the duty of Government to introduce 

 a bill abolishing all fixed engines for the capture of 

 salmon, we certainly did not anticipate that the design 

 of the Government should be frustrated, and that the 

 bill should turn out to be a legal sanction of modes of 

 fishing recently introduced, and only tolerated with 

 many misgivings as to their expediency, and even as to 

 their lawfulness, according to the spirit, if not the letter, 

 of the ancient Scottish statutes. 



Such a result has been avoided, in the last stage of 

 the bill, by its despairing opponents having the good 

 luck to be able to shelve it for the session, by a " count- 

 out" of the House of Commons. 



As we have not seen the last of this bill, we, the sal- 

 mon eating and catching public, as well as the pro- 

 prietors of salmon-fisheries, along shore and inland, 

 have such interest in it that it is worth our while to 

 acquaint ourselves with its provisions. Of many of 

 these we cordially approve, but there are several which 

 we hope to see excluded. 



