148 



THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE WITH 



Alliance of 

 navigation 

 with fishery 

 interests. 



capture of salmon does not extend to fixed engines which 

 are private property, and the right to which, dating from 

 time immemorial, or originating in a Royal grant or 

 charter, was exercised between the years 1857 and 1861, 

 yet such prohibition does extend to the public user of such 

 fixed engines, however long the public may have used 

 them. 



A succession of statutes, down to the time of Henry 

 VI II., reiterated the prohibition of weirs and similar 

 obstacles to navigation which Magna Charta had pro- 

 nounced, and by degrees the interests of the fisheries not 

 only of the salmon fisheries, but of other fisheries as well 

 came to take equal rank with those of navigation in the 

 demand for the suppression of these engines. The Act 4 

 Henry IV. c. 1 1 enforced the statutes against " wears, stakes, 

 and kidels," not only on the ground that they were an 

 obstruction to navigation, " much people being perished "- 

 no doubt owing to collisions with the obstacles but because 

 " also the young fry of fish " were " destroyed, and against 

 reason wasted and given to swine to eat." By 2 Henry 

 VI. c. 15, again "the standing of nets and engines, called 

 trinks, and all other nets fastened to great posts, boats, and 

 anchors " was prohibited, on the ground, first, of the " de- 

 struction of the brood and fry of fish ; " and, second, of 

 obstruction to navigation ; while 12 Edw. II. c. 7, in 

 reciting " the laudable statute of Magna Charta," actually 

 goes so far as to attribute its prohibition of kidels to a 

 desire not only to preserve the navigation, but to provide 

 a " safeguard of all the fry of fish." What authority there 

 was for attributing to the framers of Magna Charta an 

 intention which they did not claim themselves, and which 

 no previous Acts confirming the Charter had seen fit to 

 credit them with, is not clear. But the claim is interesting 



