no BRITISH FISHERIES 



should be charged with this expense, while 

 London and Bristol should be exempt. 



The practical working of the committees has 

 shown that their constitution is open to grave 

 criticism. There is no guarantee of continuity 

 of policy in respect to principles of legislation. 

 Though one is inclined to defer to the principle 

 of representative government in the case of the 

 fisheries, as in most other things, it is nevertheless 

 the case that, in placing the regulation of the 

 fisheries under an indirectly elected representative 

 authority, we thereby set up an administrative 

 machine which is at once unwieldy and un- 

 necessary, and which in many cases makes the 

 administration the object of insincere and semi- 

 political agitation. 



The constitution of the English central 

 authority is not less unsatisfactory than that of 

 the local committees. Until a comparatively 

 short time ago this authority was a sub-depart- 

 ment of the Board of Trade, which consisted 

 practically of an assistant secretary, and of three 

 inspectors of fisheries. This department is not 

 directly concerned with the actual regulation of 

 the industry, but exercises a kind of supervisory 

 control over the working of the sea -fisheries 

 committees. A great portion of its work con- 

 sists of the administration of the Acts relating 

 to the fresh-water fisheries, and this forms the 

 subject of a separate official report. The function 



