THE INSHORE FISHERIES 175 



development of the inshore fisheries, this legislation merely ac- 

 celerated the decline which had set in. In fact, had all the local 

 by-laws been carried out rigidly, the state of affairs would have 

 been intolerable. 



As a matter of fact, for various reasons, much of the local regula- 

 tion was ineffective. Many of the committees were Hi-supplied 

 with funds, and this limited to a very large extent their power of 

 harassing the inshore fishermen. In other cases the regulations 

 were so obviously unfair and unreasonable that — after a little 

 ptreliminary agitation — ^no attempt was made to carry them out 

 in their entirety, and the practice of granting " concessions " was 

 forced on the committees. These concessions were purely illegal, 

 the proper procedure being to repeal a harsh by-law ; but as this 

 often involved considerable expense and a great waste of time 

 the local committees found it easier and just as effective to instruct 

 their officials to take no steps to prosecute offenders in certain 

 cases of breaches of the more obnoxious by-laws. Thus one finds 

 that for years bodies appointed to enforce certain regulations 

 were, in fact, doing their utmost to connive at breaches of them. 



The whole procedure of these local committees was for a con- 

 siderable time — and in some instances still is — open to very serious 

 criticism ;^ in not a few instances an impasse was created. 



The authorities contributing to the finances of the committees 

 in some cases declined to pay the sums due from them to the com- 

 mittee, but after trial in the High Court, ^ it was decided that as 

 long as the Fishery Committee existed, and the Order establishing 

 it was in force, no contributory authority could legally decline to 

 pay the amounts due from it under the Order. The proper method 

 of procedure is to appeal to the Central Authority for a dissolution 

 of the Order. 



In 1913 the President of the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries 

 appointed a Committee to " inquire into the present condition of 

 the inshore fisheries, and to advise the Board as to steps which 

 could with advantage be taken for their improvement and develop- 

 ment." It is particularly unfortunate that the constitution of 

 this Committee was such as to invite criticism, and it is even more 

 unfortunate that its recommendations are of such a sweeping nature 

 as to render them practically impossible of adoption — at any rate, 

 for a generation. It is a matter for regret that the report of this 



1 Some of this criticism was quite fair, some unfair. See, The Lancashire Sea 

 Fisheries, by C. L. Jackson. Manchester, 1899. The Devon Sea Fisheries. " The 

 Opening of the Bays to Trawlers, ' ' by Stuart A. Moore. Privately printed. Smardon, 

 Brixham, 1904, and the evidence given before the Committee on Fishery Investi- 

 gations, 1908, p. 305, et seq. 



' See, " Reg. v. North Riding of Yorkshire County Council" (1899), i. Q.B. 201. 



