26 BRITISH FISHERIES 



" To produce all these effects without a shadow 

 of evidence to show that the enforcement of a 

 close time has a beneficial effect upon the supply 

 of fish, or in any way promotes the public interest ; 

 though without doubt the close time is exceed- 

 ingly convenient for the curers, in its twofold 

 effect upon the labour market and the herring 

 market." 1 



It has been said that the Commission of 1863 

 were influenced by the spirit of the Free Trade 

 movement, and that the doctrines of Cobden and 

 Bright were to a large extent responsible for the 

 liberating and liberalising tone of their report. 

 This is to be traced in the tone of their con- 

 clusions and recommendations, and it coloured 

 the questions put to the witnesses. The reader 

 of the fishery literature of the time will easily 

 trace the same opinions in the utterances of 

 many of the administrations of the two decades 

 following the publication of the report of i863. 2 

 They were strongly opposed to the bounty system 

 and to the system of branding herrings in 

 Scotland, a system which they considered to be 

 an unnecessary (and uneconomic) fostering of the 



1 Report ', Royal Commission of 1863, p. 114 (8vo edition). The 

 result of these representations was to secure the passage of an Act 

 (30 and 31 Viet. c. 52, 1867) that abolished the close time for 

 herrings on the west coast of Scotland north of the Clyde. 



2 See a lecture by Sir Spencer Walpole on the "British Fish 

 Trade" in Literature, International Fisheries Exhibition, London, 

 1883. Wm. Clowes. 



