240 THE FISHER Y LA WS. 



Like rights are given to fishermen everywhere on the 

 Irish coasts by the Irish Fisheries Act of 1842.* 



In Scotland no legislation of this kind, local or general, 

 was needed ; for the common law, by a wiser and more 

 liberal policy than the English, admits the common right to 

 use both the shores of the sea and the banks of public rivers 

 for " white fishing," that is, for catching any fish other than 

 salmon, as to which the Crown has special privileges. 



An Act of 1770 "for the encouragement of the white 

 herring fishery " declares that all persons employed in that 

 fishery are to " have the free use of all ports, harbours, 

 shores and forelands" up to high water mark, and 100 

 yards beyond it, on any waste or uncultivated land, for the 

 purpose of landing nets and stores, curing fish, and drying 

 nets, without payment except of harbour and pier dues. 

 This appears to give by implication a right to enter on 

 private lands in England to the extent specified ; but it is 

 odd that there is no particular mention of owners or 

 occupiers, nor are the fishermen expressly protected from 

 being sued as trespassers, though they must not, under a 

 penalty of 100, be obstructed. 2 



There were many statutes of the eighteenth and early 

 nineteenth centuries regulating the sea-fisheries of England 

 or of Great Britain. So far as they applied to England 

 they were swept away, I believe without exception, by the 

 Sea Fisheries Act of 1868. 



On the Irish coast fixed or drift nets must not be used 

 to catch herrings in the daytime, nor must any net be used 

 (except in dredging for shell-fish) which is "covered with 



1 5 & 6 Viet. c. 1 06, ss. 3, 4 (may be re-enactment of some older 

 statute : the language seems modelled on that of the English local Act 

 of James I.) 



8 ii Geo. 3, c. 31. 



