THE HISTORY OF DUTCH SEA FISHERIES. 551 



uncompromising principle of " laissez faire, laissez passer/' 

 was predominant with the Liberal side in politics. Thence 

 the history of the Fishery Bills may properly be contained 

 in a very few words. Government went a fair length 

 Free Trade way, and Parliament urged them still farther. 



Opposition to the leading idea of the Bills was now con- 

 fined to the circle of fishery interest, and to those few 

 publicists who, in the days of which we are speaking, 

 openly advocated Protection. In Parliament scarcely a 

 show was made of opposition to Fishery Law Repeal. The 

 Sections' Report on both the Bills commenced by the 

 auspicious statement that the principle laid down by 

 Government had met with nearly universal approbation. 

 Everything which looked like an exception to that principle 

 was objected to. Not a few members wanted the fishery 

 law to consist solely of a clause repealing all existing laws 

 and decrees on the subject in other words, they wanted 

 the facultative assay, the advising College, and the measures 

 against destruction of fish-life, to be removed out of the 

 Bill, and all Customs duties on fish to be abolished at once. 

 Assay of herring, they said, yielded no proper warrant as 

 to quality, and retarded those expeditions of early herring 

 by which very high prices were made during the first days 

 of each season. The trawling and shrimping restrictions 

 were regarded as unnecessary ; and it was shown upon the 

 occasion that, as to the period when, and the place and 

 depth where, spawn of plaice, sole, flounder, &c., are found 

 in the sea, the opinions of pisciculturists and fishermen 

 were then anything but consistent. Some said that spawn 

 of these fish lay on the bottom, and was therefore destroyed 

 by the trawl-net ; others averred that it swam in the water, 

 and did not suffer from a trawling apparatus. According 

 to some, the period when spawn and fry required undis- 



