8 BRITISH FISHERIES 



2. Forms and dimensions of fishing apparatus ; 

 close times for herring fishing. 



3. General behaviour of boats and fishermen ; 

 supervision. 



The Board of Trade, the Customs, and the 

 Admiralty were made fishery authorities under 

 this Act. 



There was another Act in force (i Geo. I. c. 18), 

 of a very stringent nature. This provided that all 

 fish-nets (with the exception of herring, sprat, and 

 pilchard nets) should have meshes of not less than 

 3^ inches from knot to knot, and that nets of less 

 than this size should be seized and burned. It 

 forbade the landing or selling of unsizeable fish,^ 

 and provided that such fish, if seized, should be 

 distributed among the poor of the parish. Need- 

 less to say, the provisions of this Act, if enforced, 

 would practically have destroyed fishing in the 

 open sea. 



Neither this nor the Convention Act was 

 enforced. The latter was an example of legal 

 ambiguity, for opinions differed as to the limits 

 within which it was operative. It was contended 

 that it applied only to the territorial waters as 

 1 defined and to the English Channel. But it was 

 lalso held (and this was the better opinion) that it 

 'operated all round the British coasts, even on the 



1 The legal minimum sizes were : — Brill and turbot, 16 inches ; 

 codling, 12 inches; whiting, 6 inches; mullet, 12 inches; sole, 

 8 inches; plaice and dab, 8 inches; flounder, 7 inches. 



