NON-LEGISLATIVE REMEDIES. 229 



owners on any given river form themselves, as it were, 

 into a joint-stock company, this man having a fourth 

 share, and that a fortieth, and then proceed to fish the 

 river in the way best for all of them considered as one 

 interest, and divide the money proceeds among the 

 shareholders according to the number or proportion of 

 their shares'? More specifically, our radical reform is 

 this, — to erect or work in each river, at such place or 

 several places as might be most suitable, some engines 

 which shall, during periods properly regulated and re- 

 stricted, take possibly every fish which ascends to them, 

 or allow all to pass, dividing the expense and the produce 

 among the proprietors of the fisheries in the proportion 

 which the present value of the fishery of each bears to 

 the present value of the whole. 



That such engines are quite possible, there is no 

 doubt; indeed, the whole aim of legislation hitherto 

 has been to prevent the erection of anything resembling 

 them. Keeping, then, this fact in view, how foolish and 

 wasteful the present system appears when scrutinized ! 

 The salmon does and must travel for the whole extent 

 of his fresh-water journey along a road, so to speak, of 

 a few yards wide. In many cases, we can at some part 

 or parts of that road erect a bar or pit-faU, by which we 

 may, when we wish, infallibly catch him, or through 

 which, when it suits our end, we may let him pass un- 

 molested. But instead of that, we prohibit all such 

 bars, and set some hundreds of men at some scores of 

 stations to make shots at him as he darts past, shooting, 

 too, be it remembered, in the dark. There is nothing 

 analogous to this to be found anywhere, keeping in mind 



