CLEAR WATERS 



materially decrease the stock. If, on the other hand, 

 a great parade of repression, or a special show of force 

 is made, fresh watchers imported and so on, the 

 ordinary transgressors redouble their efforts wherever 

 they can from mere antagonism, and some who are 

 not chronic offenders are moved to take a hand from 

 the same motives. I am not defending such an 

 attitude, but merely stating an ordinary truth familiar 

 not to every one who fishes, or even who lives in Wales, 

 but to every one who understands the country. It 

 has nothing to do with Welsh radicalism, though the 

 improper sympathy of Welsh radical magistrates with 

 poachers naturally makes some people think so. It 

 existed long before there were any radicals at all to 

 speak of in the Principality. It is a kind of instinct 

 that the people have certain rights in the fish, traceable 

 probably to far-away days if not actually to the 

 tribal period of the Welsh princes. The feudalism 

 which was slowly grafted on this by Norman influences 

 or gradual Norman conquest was easier in these respects 

 than the cast-iron game laws which the Normans set 

 up and enforced after their rapid conquest of England. 

 Some echoes of this from old times undoubtedly 

 account for the fact that an otherwise law-abiding 

 people have never in their hearts accepted the law 

 in this one particular, if they do so with their lips. 

 For it must be remembered that the sanctity of rod 

 fishing in mountain districts is quite a modern thing. 

 In the abstract it is a rather interesting situation. 

 Many things, irrelevant here, have conduced to 

 eliminate the old, violent salmon-poaching at Rhayader. 

 Perhaps education has lessened the zeal for a bloody 

 196 



