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Appendices to Thirty -fifth Annual Report 



97) created a further separation between the upper and the lower pro- 

 prietors, which has existed ever since, and which in my opinion has simply 

 accentuated the spirit of opposition between parties in a Fishery District. 

 Lord Elgin's Commission, to which reference has already been made, re- 

 commended that the separation be done away. As it is, the Tweed Com- 

 missioners have never been a party to the arrangement. 



The last general Salmon Act for Scotland is the Act of 1868, and much 

 water has flowed below the bridge in the last 49 years. 



With regard to the collection of statistics, the Board have for long 

 stated that annual returns should be made showing the number of salmon 

 caught in Scotland, whether by net or rod. The objection made by 

 lessees of fishings is that this implies an inquisitorial scrutiny which will 

 affect their rents. But this objection can be easily overcome by an 

 instruction that no results of individual fisheries will at any time be stated, 

 or that the statistics will be published so as to show only wide districts of 

 the country. The Commission of 1902 upheld this view, and stated that 

 " the public good must over-ride private interests " in such matters. An 

 excellent concrete example was recently given, in The Salmon and Trout 

 Magazine (April 1917), by Mr. J. Arthur Hutton, showing how the results 

 might appear. He says, in supporting this view For example, I as an 

 export-merchant have to declare that on a certain day I shipped to, say, 

 Mombasa, 5 cases of printed cotton goods containing 10,125 yards, value 

 ^168. In the following month the Board of Trade will publish a return 

 as follows : — Shipments of printed cotton goods to British East Africa, 

 270,000 yards, value £4500. 



" There is nothing in this which will in any way injure my business, 

 although my shipment forms a part of this monthly return of 270,000 

 yards of printed cotton." 



There is no doubt at all that we would be in a far stronger position, if 

 we had such statistics, to deal not only with the question of the national 

 condition of our salmon fisheries, but also in the various local considera- 

 tions which arise from time to time. While the absence of such statistics 

 weakens our argument as to the present condition and throws us back 

 upon such returns as the weights of salmon carried, returns which I 

 repeat are given us only by the courtesy of railways, and the compilation 

 of which has been objected to before now on the ground of its being 

 a gratuitous task thrown on already busy employees, and returns which, 

 after all, cannot tell us much that we should know, the absence, neverthe- 

 less, must appeal to every one who thinks over the matter at all, as showing 

 a condition of things which should not be allowed to continue, when, by 

 all the available signs, we are faced by a serious falling away in our stock 

 of sabnon. 



It surely is of the essence of government that there be adequate 

 knowledge of the thing to be governed. For purposes of general 

 administration we have no official collection of statistical information 

 whatever. For general purposes also there is no value in publishing 

 details which will in any way affect local interests. In the consideration 

 of local matters, however, there is great benefit in having the details for 

 official use. Take, for instance, the case of a Petition for alteration of 

 Close Time. In the customary inquuy into a point of this kind, the 

 official concerned should be in a position himself to refer to the details 

 from the district under review, and so be able to rely less upon the 

 conflicting statements he may receive in evidence. 



Valuable statistics can be produced for certain isolated fisheries, and 

 these have been of the greatest use when cansultation became necessary. 



On the other hand, such statistics as referred to the numbers of boxes 



