22 SALMON FISHERIES 



are fishery owners, and proprietors of river fisheries 

 who are not mill owners. 



As there are but three parties interested in this 

 question, we will endeavour to explain their relative 

 positions, as they naturally occur. 



1st. The ancient riparian proprietors of the banks 

 and bed of the river, whom we will call the salmon 

 fishery proprietors. 



2nd. The mill owning proprietors, who have con- 

 trary to statutes built weirs across the rivers for their 

 own private benefit. 



3rd. The public, who have been deprived of valua- 

 ble and nutritious food. 



We will first deal with the ancient salmon fishery 

 proprietors. The Act of 1 865 has destroyed all fixed 

 engines in our estuaries, on the principle that it was 

 a transference of the property of the river proprietors 

 to those on the sea coast, and this, with the power of 

 protecting the salmon in the accessible portions of the 

 upper waters, has greatly improved the produce 

 of the fisheries. But if the Legislature considered 

 it necessary to abolish these unlawful destructive en- 

 gines, in order to improve our fisheries, how much 

 more important is it now to remove or at least render 

 less mischievous by making fish passes over the most 

 destructive engine that was ever invented, which has 

 destroyed the property of the ancient fishery proprie- 

 tors as well as of the public. 



The mill owning proprietors for many years have 

 built these walls across our salmon rivers, contrary to 

 statute law. They do not occupy the tenth part of 

 the length of our rivers, and have destroyed the 

 property of the fishery proprietors and the public food 

 to the amount of (by comparison with the Irish rivers) 

 half-a-million of pounds a year. This food can only 

 be restored by allowing the salmon to resort to the 

 upper waters, where alone they can be safely bred. 



