134 SALMON BRITISH AND COLONIAL. 



interest in the decision ; and having exercised our un- 

 biassed judgment, we cannot dissent from the Koyal 

 Commissioners (Sir William Jardine, Mr Ffennell, and 

 Mr Blckards) when thus reporting to her Majesty: 



" We are prepared, after a full consideration of the 

 case, to recommend the total suppression, by law, of 

 all fixed engines on the estuaries and sea-coasts. The 

 grounds upon which we have arrived at this conclusion 

 are the following : 



" 1. These engines, with few exceptions, are of 

 modern invention, and they are opposed to the whole 

 aim and spirit of the fishing laws, the object of which 

 was to secure the salmon a free passage to and from 

 the sea, and to cause an equitable distribution of them 

 throughout the rivers. 



" 2. These engines are baneful to the fisheries, not 

 only on account of the number of fish which they des- 

 troy, but also because they scare and drive them away 

 to sea, when they come in shoals seeking the rivers, 

 thereby exposing them to be injured or destroyed in a 

 variety of ways." 



While many are of opinion that the amended clause 

 in the Lord Advocate's bill is a reasonable compromise 

 between competing interests, the perusal of these deli- 

 berate statements of the Koyal Commission will lead not 

 a few to fear that this settlement of the vexed question 

 has been arrived at from considerations not of strict 

 justice, or of due attention to the natural history of the 

 salmon. This fear is deepened on finding that the 

 Fishery Commissioners for Ireland report that in 1860 

 the salmon-fisheries were not so productive as in the 

 preceding year. 



" The number of fixed engines in the tideways and 

 on the sea-coast has increased, within seven years, 

 from 270 to 386. This mode of capture has now extend- 

 ed to an abuse ; but as it has been legalised by the 

 Legislature, all that the Commissioners can do is to 

 adopt as short an open season as the circumstances of 



