THE FISHERIES IN 1863 5 



great natural resources which are extremely liable 

 to arbitrary fluctuations. It is characteristic of 

 the industry in any locality that it should be 

 subject to periodical depressions, which are due to 

 seasons of bad fishing ; and of the causes of these 

 bad seasons we have, even now, very little know- 

 ledge. An almost invariable feature of these 

 times of depression has been that they have given 

 rise to agitations for legislative restrictions of 

 some kind or other. Fishermen, as a class, are 

 extremely conservative, and generally resent the 

 introduction of new methods of fishing ; although 

 very observant, they have little notion of general 

 causes, and of the wider occurrences in connection 

 with their industry, and they are therefore very 

 apt to attribute a failure in the fishery to any 

 casual event which may have, in any way, pro- 

 voked their displeasure. We find accordingly that 

 during these bad seasons they have often sought for 

 interference with other forms of fishing than that 

 practised by themselves, or for interference with 

 the same form of fishing practised elsewhere ; ^ 

 and if the introduction of a new method happened 

 to coincide with such a bad season, they have con- 

 nected the two things together as cause and effect.^ 



1 For instance, in 1836 — a season of bad herring fishing — the 

 fishermen of Loch Fyne entreated the Fishery Board to protect 

 their loch from ruin by putting down fishing for herring on the 

 east coast of Scotland. They believed that the Loch Fyne herring 

 went there to spawn and were caught. 



2 Thus, the Irish Fishery Commissioners received the most press- 



