492 SALMON LEGISLATION IN SCOTLAND. 



comprehensive Bills were introduced, proceeding on "almost 

 the same lines, and proposing inter alia in both cases the 

 abolition of " fixed engines," and the extension of the close 

 time. The English Bill was passed with no material 

 alteration, but the Scotch Bill, after having been subjected 

 to the tender mercies of another Committee (of the House 

 of Commons), which unfortunately was not, as it should 

 have been, entirely disinterested, was so altered and muti- 

 lated, that its introducer, the Lord Advocate, did not know 

 it again, and consequently withdrew it. The vexata qticestio 

 which mainly caused this result was the abolition of fixed 

 engines, and seeing that the opposition on the point was so 

 strong against him, the Lord Advocate (Moncreiff) pru- 

 dently decided to defer its discussion to a more convenient 

 season, and to secure in the meantime other important 

 improvements which there was more chance of carrying. 

 He therefore brought in a Bill with this view in the follow- 

 ing year (1862), which was finally passed after undergoing 

 a certain amount of alteration. The question of fixed 

 engines was left open, with the stipulation that nothing in 

 the Act should be held to legalise any mode of fishing 

 which had before been illegal, a proviso which had been 

 rendered all the more necessary by an attempt of the 

 Committee on the Bill of 1861, to legislatively acknowledge 

 fixed engines, under cover of subjecting them to certain 

 restrictions. 



THE ACT OF 1862. 



This Act of 1862 now forms the foundation of the present 

 state of the law of salmon fishing in Scotland, though not 

 so completely as the corresponding English Act of 1861 

 for England, which repealed all the existing statutes on the 



