206 THE RELATIONS OF THE STATE WITH 



of these conditions, but she has also to carry the distinctive 

 "white light at the masthead" of a steam-ship. This is 

 hardly the place to enter into the discussion of a question 

 involving much technical detail, but the fact is not without 

 significance that the fishing interest prevailed upon the 

 framers of the new regulations to modify them in their 

 favour, and that the principal point on which the negotia- 

 tions turned was the nature of the light to be carried by 

 a trawler. 



The new regulations, as at first drafted, proposed that 

 a boat, when employed in drift-net fishing, should carry 

 two red lights vertically one over the other, not less than 

 three feet apart ; and that a trawler, when " at work," 

 should similarly carry two lights, one red, and the other 

 green. No provision, however, was made for a trawler 

 accidentally made fast through the net becoming fixed at 

 the bottom. Trawlers had been in the habit of carrying, 

 without authority, the white light indicating a vessel at 

 anchor, on the ground that when at work these boats are 

 more or less unmanageable and stationary ; and for this 

 reason they objected to the new regulations. It was also 

 alleged that the use of coloured lights, which are only visible 

 at a distance of 3700 yards if red, and 2700 yards if green, as 

 against 4850 yards if white, was incompatible with the law 

 which keeps trawlers and drifters three miles apart. The 

 ultimate arrangement arrived at was that two white lights 

 on board drifters, and a red and a white light on board 

 trawlers, should be substituted for the two coloured lights ; 

 and that trawlers, when " fast," should use the light required 

 to be shown by a vessel at anchor. 



Distinction Two points come out very clearly in this sketch of the 

 and fresh- history of fishery legislation : 1st, that a distinction must 

 fisheries ^ e ma( ^ e between the sea-fisheries and the inland fisheries 



