of the F'ishery Board for Scotland t 



247 



long prevailed, and may, in the absence of new inquiries, have been 

 requisite to pi-event disturbance of the peace, still, as it proceeds on the 

 assumption that it is justifiable for the conservation of the breed of 

 herring, we are bound to state that, in this point of view, the repressive 

 Acts of 1851, 1860, and 1861 were altogether unnecessary; that they 

 are essentially Acts for protecting class interests, and interfere with the 

 invention and application of new and more productive modes of 

 industry." They expressed the opinion that if any legislation had been 

 requisite, it should have been applied to a regulation of the size of the 

 mesh of the seines, which were frequently used under the legal standard. 

 But, if seine-fishing w T ere again made legal, they recommended that the 

 Board of Fisheries should have discretionary powers to prohibit it " in 

 waters w r hich are too narrow for that and drift-net fishing being peace- 

 ably carried on simultaneously" ; and they declared their opinion " that 

 Upper Loch Fyne, i.e. above Otter Spit, is too narrow for this purpose, 

 and that the Kyles of Bute offer another instance in which it would be 

 desirable to give the Fishery Board discretionary powers to prohibit the 

 practice of seining, but merely as a question of police." 



In the year in which the Report of the Playfair Commission was 

 published, another Royal Commission was appointed to enquire into the 

 condition of the whole sea fisheries of the United Kingdom, and especially 

 as to (1) whether the fish supply was increasing, stationary, or diminish- 

 ing; (2) whether any methods of fishing in use involved a wasteful 

 destruction of fish or spawn, and, if so, whether it was probable that 

 any legislative restriction upon such methods of fishing would result in 

 an increase of the supply of fish ; and (3) whether any existing legis- 

 lative restrictions operated injuriously upon any of such fisheries. This 

 great Commission, whose labours led to the repeal of so many fishery 

 statutes, was composed of Sir James Caird, M.P., Professor Huxley, 

 and Mr. G. Shaw-Lefevre, M.P., and in 1864 they visited Scotland, and, 

 inter alia, enquired into the question of seine-net fishing for herrings. 

 In their Report* the Commission adopted the conclusions of the Play- 

 fair Commission. " We are unable," they reported, " to find any 

 satisfactory proof in the evidence that has been brought before us 

 that trawling or circle net-fishing for herrings is, when properly 

 practised, wasteful, or destructive to the brood and spawn of the 

 herring. We are of opinion that it has been and may be a very 

 important means of supplying the market with an abundance of fish ; 

 and that, not unfrequently, under circumstances which preclude the 

 capture of herrings by the drift-net fishermen. "t With respect 

 to the simultaneous prosecution of the two modes of fishing in 

 narrow waters, they had no doubt that they might be safely carried 

 on in Lower Lochfyne ; but they expressed the same opinion as the 

 Playfair Commission as regards Upper Loch Fyne and the Kyles of Bute. 

 In these waters, they said, " there may be difficulties in keeping order 

 among so large a number of fishermen collected together in a compara- 

 tively narrow space, and holding very opposite views upon the merits 

 of their respective modes of fishing ; but apart from the question of 

 police, we see no reason why both modes of fishing should not be per- 

 mitted. It is perfectly clear to us that there are times when the 

 " trawl " will take fish, when none can be caught by the drift-net."J The 

 conclusion of the Commission on this subject was as follows : — " With 

 respect to the particular case of circle-net fishing on the w T est coast of 



* Report of the Commissioners appointed! to inquire into the Sea Fisheries of the 

 United Kingdom. Vol. I. 1866. 



■flbid., p. xlv. 

 $11 id., Ivii. 



