of the Fishery Board for Scotland. 



95 



As an additional safeguard against undue interference with manu- 

 facturing and mining interest, section 6 enacts that proceedings shall 

 only be taken at the instance of a Sanitary Authority with the consent 

 of the Local Government Board (Board of Health). This was after- 

 wards qualified by section 55 of the Local Government (Scotland) Act, 

 1889, which empowered County Councils to act in the same way and 

 with the same powers as Sanitary Authorities. As members of County 

 Councils are not infrequently concerned in the creation of pollutions, 

 this clause has not proved of much use, while it may be said that the 

 complications of procedure and the safeguards against interference 

 with polluters have rendered the Rivers Pollution Prevention Acts of 

 practically no use to those interested in the preservation of our fisheries. 



In the Salmon Fisheries (Scotland) Act, 1862, there is another 

 reference to pollutions, but it embodies the same sort of proviso as to 

 " the best practicable means within a reasonable cost." This introduc- 

 tion of the element of cost is liable to be interpreted variously, and to 

 mean in the main that any large cost cannot reasonably be contem- 

 plated. Modern purification plants cannot be erected without a fair 

 amount of cost, and those interested in the fisheries are naturally 

 inclined to the view that even a large cost, being the price of a pure river, 

 is reasonable. Section 13 as amended by section 16 of the Salmon 

 Fisheries (Scotland) Act, 1868 — the very latest Act — reads as follows : — 

 "Every person who causes or knowingly permits to flow, or puts or 

 knowingly permits to be put, into any river containing salmon, any 

 liquid or solid matter poisonous or deleterious to salmon, to an extent 

 injurious to any salmon fishery, shall be liable to the following penalties." 

 The weak point here is the expression " to an extent injurious to any 

 salmon fishery," a phrase which originally had reference to the discharge 

 of sawdust, but which when the reference to sawdust was deleted, was 

 left in as if by an accident of drafting. 



Procedure here is at the instance of a clerk to a District Fishery 

 Board, and in practice it has been found that to prove injury it is 

 necessary to produce salmon found dead, and to prove that they have 

 been killed by pollution. Proof of this nature is exceedingly difficult 

 to obtain, and the unfortunate fact is that by the time adult fish have 

 been killed by pollution an infinite amount of harm has already been 

 done to fry and to the food of fry, while the gravels forming the bed 

 of the river may have been rendered quite unsuitable for salmon to 

 spawn in. 



Apart from Common Law rights, these are the statutory provisions 

 dealing with Pollutions. 



Recommendations have been made both by the Royal Commission 

 on Salmon Fisheries, 1902, and the Sewage Disposal Commission in their 

 exhaustive series of Reports. 



The former in their Summary of Recommendations state (Report, 

 p. 63): — "We are satisfied that much injury is done to the fisheries by 

 pollution of rivers which might be prevented ; and although some 

 amendments of the law would be advisable, to which we have referred 

 in our Report, that a better administration of the law is all-important. 

 We therefore concur in the recommendation of the Sewage Disposal 

 Commission for the creation of a Watersheds Board under a Supreme 

 Rivers Authority in those waters, on the understanding that the 

 recommendation of the Sewage Commission on the methods to be 

 adopted for the purification of rivers and estuaries will cover the 

 requirements of the fisheries, and that provision will be made for the 

 protection of fishery interests by the Watersheds Board." 



With further reference to the proposal for a Watersheds Board, I 



