498 SALMON LEGISLA TION IN SCOTLAND. 



flowing into the sea, with its estuary and tributaries, should 

 form a district and have a board for itself. It does not 

 seem too much to say that a very little inquiry or con- 

 sideration would have enabled the framers of the Act to 

 avoid this serious error in the detail of the system of local 

 government. It cannot surely have escaped the promoters, 

 particularly from the publicity which has been given to the 

 fact by the Reports of the River Pollution Commissioners 

 and pollution prosecutions, that many rivers in Scotland 

 have been entirely depopulated. Nor should it have been 

 unknown that many rivers in Scotland, chiefly in the 

 Highlands, are so remote, and run through so thinly- 

 populated and wild districts, while possibly the fishings 

 are not of great value, that the expense of watching them, 

 if efficient watching is not quite impossible, would be so 

 great as to swallow up all the benefit which might be 

 derived from it. In these cases also very large tracts of 

 land are usually in the hands of one or two proprietors, 

 whose residences, or those of their representatives, are so 

 far removed from each other that it is virtually impracti- 

 cable to have any meetings at all. " Le jeu ne vaut pas la 

 chandelle." 



As we shall see further on, the District Boards are too 

 much the creatures of statute, and have not, in some 

 instances, even the powers of common law, with the 

 result that they are of little use, at least in comparison to 

 what was expected of them. 



The system of local government thus inaugurated in 

 Scotland was not introduced into England till 1865, but 

 though later it has there been much more successful. The 

 districts are not so numerous as in Scotland, numbering 

 only forty-four, and they are easily and quickly accessible 

 (not more than a twelve hours' journey from London in 



