FISHERMEN AND FISHERIES. 165 



question seems to tend towards enforcing the doctrine that 

 the State should only interfere to give the greatest possible 



freedom to trade, and to afford the fullest facilities for the Freedom of 



trade, 

 erection and maintenance of markets, without unnecessary 



expense or delay, wherever the exigencies of the trade may 

 require. 



Throughout its incessant enactments, repeals, revivals, 

 and modifications of the law, the intentions of the Legisla- 

 ture were not open to question ; but the information on 

 which it acted was incorrect, and its reasoning often un- 

 sound. When it came to a question of a knowledge of the Necessity for 



knowledge of 



habits of fish the law makers were out of their depth Natural 



altogether. The close season for salmon, from the begin- Fishery 



ning of September to the beginning of November, which egls ' 



the Act of 13 Edw. I. fixed for the rivers of Yorkshire, 



certainly ended too early if it did not begin too early ; but 



by 4 & 5 Anne c. 21 this close season was applied to the 



rivers of Hants and Wilts, to whose circumstances it was no 



better adapted than to those of the northern rivers. But 



what shall be said of the Act of Geo. I. (i Geo. I. c. 18) 



which repealed these provisions in order to make the close Insufficiency 



of early close 



season, in Wiltshire and Hampshire, from August 1st to times for 

 November I2th? It is no wonder that, as 37 Geo. III. sa 

 c. 95 expresses it, this enactment was " found very preju- 

 dicial to the owners and proprietors of the fisheries in the 

 said counties," and that " further provision was necessary 

 for the better preservation of the salmon kind in the rivers 

 within the said counties." This time the close season was 

 made to correspond more nearly with the spawning season, 

 being fixed from September 1 2th to January 1st 



An Act of Richard II., which fixed the close season in 

 Lancashire so as to embrace the more reasonable period 

 between Michaelmas and the beginning of February, suffered 



