524 SALMON LEGISLA TION IN SCOTLAND. 



(4.) In all the fishings which would thus lapse to the 

 Crown, and all those presently in its possession, let or 

 unlet, the Crown might be expected to forego making 

 profit at the expense of the public good, and prohibit the 

 use of fixed nets to all its lessees. If these suggestions 

 were carried out, the number of fixed nets would be greatly 

 reduced, and it would then become much easier to make 

 regulations regarding the nets on a certain expanse of 

 shore, distance from river, &c., while at the same time 

 taking care to avoid doing anything to legalise them. 



POLLUTIONS. 



It is surely no longer possible to deny that effectual 

 legislation is most urgently required to check the great and 

 crying evil of pollution of rivers, and the Government which 

 delays taking speedy steps for this end assumes a grave 

 responsibility. 



Acts have been passed with regard to preservation of 

 fish, removal of nuisances, and river pollution generally, 

 but they have all proved useless. Statute and common 

 law alike are well nigh a dead letter, and the evil is in- 

 creasing day by day. The longer, too, it is allowed to go 

 on without being effectually checked, the worse it will be 

 to put down when the attempt is actually and earnestly 

 made. There is scarcely a river in Scotland which is not 

 made a common sewer of, to a greater or less extent ; and, 

 in addition to killing all the fish and making the water 

 totally unfit for primary purposes, some rivers absolutely 

 stink, as any one may ascertain for himself in the neigh- 

 bourhood of any large manufacturing town situated on a 

 river. The Legislature has been too tender of the feelings 

 of manufacturers, and too fearful of interfering with the 



