ADMINISTRATION IN ENGLAND in 



of the Central Fisheries Department may be 

 gathered from a perusal of the annual reports 

 of the inspectors. Much of the work of the 

 department consists in holding local inquiries 

 either into the necessity for new by-laws pro- 

 posed by the local committee, or in the con- 

 sideration of applications for Orders conferring 

 rights of "several fishery." For the rest, the 

 annual reports form presumably the statutory 

 statistical statements regarding the sea - fisheries 

 which are demanded by the Acts of 1871 and 

 1886. They contain accounts of the working 

 of the Sea - Fisheries Acts giving effect to the 

 International Conventions, and of those provisions 

 of the Merchant Shipping Acts which refer to 

 fishing boats. Returns from the local com- 

 mittees are published, and a summary of the 

 returns made by the collectors of fishery statistics 

 is also appended : in the latter one may glean 

 such information regarding the weather as this : 

 "The usual weather has been experienced, but 

 nothing remarkable " ; or regarding the fisheries, 

 that they were good, and on the whole better 

 than in previous years. 



The principal defect in the constitution and 

 working of the central authority lies in what 

 one may call its intelligence department. Ap- 

 parently the routine matters dealt with above 

 have in the past absorbed the whole time of 

 the staff, and there has been neither opportunity 



