242 THE RELATIONS OF THE STATED WITH 



and other reasons have rendered its continuance in other 

 respects unnecessary. The fact, however, that at a time 

 when England was acquiring her naval supremacy, and was 

 displaying vast energy in perfecting her fleets, the privilege 

 of exemption from compulsory service should have been 

 accorded a particular seafearing class must not be omitted 

 from consideration, since it indicates a prominent feature in 

 the relationship of the State with Fishermen during the past 

 and present centuries. It has previously been stated, that 

 the interests of fishermen are generally subservient to those 

 of the State at large. Regarded from one point of view, 

 their exemption from naval service will show their indi- 

 vidual interests to have been, in one case at least, para- 

 mount to those of the State. As a fact, the British State 

 has long perceived that the maritime prosperity of an 

 island is almost as dependent on its fisheries for develop- 

 ment as it is on its naval forces for security (2 Geo. III. 



c 15.) 



So much of the sea-fishery legislation of 1771 as confirms 

 to fishermen the free use of the British seas, of unartificial 

 ports, and of adjacent waste land for the erection of huts 

 and landing-stages, remains unrepealed ; whilst the liability 

 to a ioo/. penalty, equally divisible between the Crown 

 and the informer, of persons demanding dues for such use 

 within certain limits continues. (See 2nd Schedule of Sea- 

 Fisheries Act, 1868, and sects. 11-13 of n Geo. III. c. 31.) 



It is doubtful whether in any case for the furtherance of 

 fishing a fisherman can have a general right at common 

 law to use waste land within a few hundred yards of the 

 sea for the purpose of drying his nets ; but in some 

 cases, apart from any express grant, the uninterrupted 

 user of the land of others for that purpose has ripened into 

 a right by prescription. By statute-law, on the other hand 



