SALMON LEGISLATION. 141 



which salmon laws must be construed, in accordance 

 with the obvious designs of the Legislature from the 

 beginning till now, were very fairly, though not quite 

 exhaustively, stated by the present Lord Chancellor, in 

 a judicial decision given from the Woolsack last year. 

 He stated that the leading principles and objects which 

 the Legislature had had in view in all the Statutes, 

 which might be held as mainly declaratory of the com- 

 mon law, were these : — " The first was the object of 

 securing to the salmon a free access from the lower to 

 the upper fresh waters of the rivers, which are the 

 natural spawning-grounds of the fish ; the second was 

 to secure the means of return to the young salmon or 

 smolt down to the sea ; the third was the prohibiting 

 the taking of unclean fish during certain periods of the 

 year when it was out of season as an article of food." 

 Undoubtedly these have been, and must always be, lead- 

 ing objects in legislation on this subject ; but it would 

 have been better that Lord Westbury had stated sepa- 

 rately and emphatically another object, which, at the 

 utmost, he only includes as part of one of the three 

 objects he selects for specification, — the forbidding any 

 fishery-owner increasing, through ingenious appliances or 

 otiierwise, the efficiency of his instruments to the injury of 

 his neighbours or of the general interest. It may even 

 be doubted, indeed, whether Lord "Westbury meant to in- 

 clude this object in the first of the three "principles " he 

 propounded, for, in another part of his judgment, he 

 seemed to l^y down the doctrine that the owner of a 

 fishery is entitled to exercise his ingenuity in order to 

 overcome natural obstacles and render his fishery more 



