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Part III. — Eighteenth Annual Report 



The operations of the Act in connection with the sprat fisheries in 

 the Firth of Forth also caused great difficulties. There was no legis- 

 lative restriction against sprat fishing per se, but when young herrings 

 were captured — as they very frequently were — by the small-meshed 

 sprat seines, the nets were seized by the fishery officers, and the fishing 

 brought to a stop. When the Board of Fisheries revived the enforce- 

 ment of the Act in 1859 the sprat fishermen resisted its application to 

 them. They took steps to obtain legal interdict ; they assailed the 

 fishery officers with stones, riots occurred, and the commander of 

 H.M.S. " Lizard " reported that he could not carry out the Act without 

 arming his boats, and if he did so, that he could not be responsible for 

 the lives of the people. The " imminent risk of conflict and bloodshed " 

 was such that the Lord Advocate took upon himself the responsibility 

 of advising the Board to stop the seizure of nets and to fix a boundary 

 within which the sprat fishermen might be allowed to fish with the 

 seine ; which was done.* The Board of Fisheries, while strongly in 

 favour of a liberating Act, were of opinion that the prohibition of seine 

 trawling should not be simply repealed, as was recommended by the 

 Treasury Commission. They desired that the power of regulation should 

 be conferred upon them, so that they might permit or forbid seining for 

 herrings according to the circumstances of any particular place or case.f 

 In a Bill introduced into the House of Commons by the Lord Advocate, 

 it was accordingly proposed to give such powers to the Board while 

 repealing the existing statutory prohibition. But owing to a strong 

 and widely - extended agitation by fish - curers and merchants, the 

 opposition to this proposal in the House of Commons was so great that 

 the Bill emerged from the Legislature with provisions against seine-net 

 fishing for herrings still more absolute and stringent than those con- 

 tained in the Act of 1851. % 



The Act of 1860 was enforced, as far as it could be, in Loch Fyne 

 and the Firth of Clyde by the aid of two gunboats and a strong staff of 

 police on shore, but the efforts to suppress seining were "still attended 

 with difficulty" and "were found ineffective." The illegal net was 

 the only article that could be seized, and as the trawlers were ready to 

 sacrifice it for the sake of making their haul of herrings, by cutting 



* Ibid. Report on the Herring Fisheries of Scotland, by Buckland and Walpole, 

 p. 2. Report of the Commissioners on the Sea Fisheries of the United Kingdom, 

 Vol. II., p. 579 (1866). 



f Memo, by Mr. Bouverie Primrose. Ibid., and Vol. I., App., p. 47. 



X 23 and 24 Vict., c. 92. An Act to Amend the Law relative to the Scottish Herring 

 Fisheries, 1860. Section 13 is as follows : — " For the purposes of the provisions of the sixth 

 section of the Act fourteenth and fifteenth Victoria, chapter twenty-six, the herring 

 fishery shall be held to be carried on whenever herrings are being caught, and every net, 

 other than drift nets, which, in the opinion of such Commissioners, may be used for the 

 purpose of taking herrings in contravention of the said Act, shall during the whole time 

 of such herring fishery be removed and laid aside, or shall be liable to be seized and for- 

 feited, and the owner thereof to be proceeded against accordingly ; and the finding of 

 any such other net in any open place, and not removed and laid aside as aforesaid, shall be 

 held prima facie evidence of the purpose of the possessor of such net to use the 

 same in contravention of the provisions of the recited Acts or of this Act ; and unless 

 such possessor shall prove to the satisfaction of the Sheriff. Justice or Justices of the 

 Peace, or magistrate, before whom he may be prosecuted, that such net was not intended 

 to be used for any such unlawful purpose, such net shall be forfeited and destroyed, and 

 the possessor thereof shall be liable in the penalty imposed by the sixth section of the 

 said Act ; and, in addition to any superintendent or person acting under his orders, or 

 any officer of the fishery, every constable or officer of the police of any county or burgh 

 acting under the authority and orders of the Sheriff, or any Justice of the Peace, or 

 magistrate of such county or burgh shall, for the purpose of enforcing the provisions of 

 the sixth section of the said Act, have, within such county or burgh, the power to seize 

 any such net in order to the condemnation and forfeiture thereof ; and, on the requisition 

 of any superintendent or other officer of the fishery, any constable or officer of police 

 shall be entitled to assist and co-operate with him or them in the execution of this 

 Act." Seotion 14 declares the mode of obtaining warrants to search for and seize illegal 

 nets, the enforcing of tines and penalties, &c. 



