26 SALMON FISHERIES 



We will assume the fish passes are to be made at the 

 expense of the riparian proprietors of the rivers, or 

 by their Boards of Conservators, with a provision that 

 when so made, every fish pass shall have a supply of 

 the whole water of the river to run through such 

 passes for ten hours of each night, say from 7 o'clock 

 in the evening to 5 o'clock next morning. There 

 may be a few cases in which the mill owner has 

 worked his mill both day and night, and in such cases 

 where the miller can prove that he has done so for 

 the previous five years, that the conservators shall 

 compensate him for any loss that he may sustain be- 

 yond the fourteen hours, for the water power that he 

 may be deprived of during any portion of the year, 

 and during which it may be required by the salmon 

 passes. Under these circumstances the mill owner 

 would sustain no injury. The fishery proprietors 

 having incurred this expense, it would only be 

 reasonable that their water bailiffs should be allowed 

 to traverse the banks of the rivers for the purpose of 

 protecting the salmon during the spawning season. 



The few mills that work both night and day absorb 

 all the water that the river may produce, and it is 

 obvious that a fish pass of the best construction 

 would be of no avail in such instances. Having thus 

 provided a ten hours' supply during the night over 

 the fish passes, and that no fish shall be caught within 

 a hundred yards of any weir, and that the water 

 bailiffs shall have the power to traverse the banks of. 

 every river in order to protect the fish, otherwise the 

 efforts of the conservators would be defeated. Salmon 

 is a migratory animal that can only be bred in the 

 upper streams of a river ; they are fed in the sea, 

 and if you exclude them from a river, or exclude 

 them from the sea, they may soon become extinct. 



These two I consider indispensible requisites for 

 the restoration of our fisheries, and until they are con- 



