In these nine districts, then, the men that bred the fish took last year 1,237 out of a total of 52,563.

But limitation, I repeat, to be effective must be sufficient, and must accord with fair play. How are these requirements met generally, as shown by the above returns? How are they met on the Severn? The nets and fixed engines take 16,000 fish, the rods 15. It is evident that under the present law, the fish escape upwards during the fishing season in such small numbers as to make it scarcely worth while to use a rod at all. Not nearly all of these 16,000 fish are bred in the Severn, but it is a marvel that under such circumstances the Severn should yield so many fish as it does. That marvel is due to the excellence of the natural quality of the river, and of the organization of the Severn fishery district, into which the long established and admirably conducted Severn fishery association at Worcester, with a branch at Shrewsbury, has merged.

But take the case of the Tyne. Here the nets get 26,482 out of the total net catch of 52,563 and the rods 948 out of the total rod catch of 1,237. In other words, the river where the rod fisheries are moderately productive is, length for length, enormously more productive than the other eight rivers where the rods get very little. And the Tyne case is the stronger because it is one where liberal treatment of the upper proprietors has overcome great natural difficulties. The Tyne's condition in 1861 was very bad. At the mouth was Newcastle with its pollution and traffic. In the upper waters, the South Tyne, a full half of the river, was completely poisoned by the mines. At Bywell, a short distance above the tideway, a fishing mill dam closed the river's course. The upper proprietors, however, desired strongly to bring the Act into operation, and Mr. Wentworth Beaumont, the proprietor of the Bywell dam, with much liberality removed it. There are no nets above, and the river became a rod river. Notwithstanding the pollution by mines, the traffic and pollution of Newcastle, the drainage, the sheep-washing and other

(1) Plus three hundred supposed to have been taken in the Royalty.

altered conditions of the times we live in, the Tyne in 1878 yielded 48,150 salmon.

Let us turn to the Usk and the Wye. These two rivers are similar in character, and flow into the Bristol Channel. The Usk, much smaller than the Wye, has so little netting in the fresh water that it may be almost called a rod river. But it must not be supposed on that account to yield no fish to the nets. The fact is that very many of the fish taken in the Severn district are bred in the Usk. Salmon only enter the fresh portion of a river with high or flood water. The Severn district comprises a portion of the Bristol Channel; that channel forms an estuary common to the Severn, Wye, and Usk. The fish waiting for a flood pass in a dry season up and down this estuary for days or weeks, and thus the Usk fish fall into the Severn district nets. The season for 1879 was a wet one. Many fish escaped the nets, for they took their river at once. The Usk rods caught 3,550 salmon; the Severn net-takes fell to 9,855. The fishing season of 1880 was dry. The Usk rods took, principally after the net close season had commenced, 1,267 fish; the take of the Severn nets rose to 16,000.

It is in this among other ways that rivers are inter-dependent, and in this way among others that the public derive so great a benefit from the efforts of the private proprietors to preserve for sport.

Contrast the case of the Wye with that of the Usk. The Wye is one of the most valuable rivers, estimated by its producing capabilities, in all England. The greatest desire is shown by the private owners to preserve it. But their own view of their own interests prevents all combination, and the river almost remains a waste. The Wye, unfortunately for itself, offers excessive facilities for netting, and these facilities are remorselessly taken advantage of. Lord Aberdare states in the Report already referred to, that "netting is practised over seventy-one miles of its course, viz. fifty-seven middle, and fourteen tidal waters." The fact needs no comment. The result can only be one-decrease in yield, and decrease be it remembered from a very poor commencement, and such discontent in the breeding districts that the fish are not preserved and the law is openly defied.

Mr. Walpole and Professor Huxley, in their report to Parliament on the riots that occurred last winter, state that "It is obvious from the evidence we have received at Rhayader, that the upper proprietors can enforce order if they choose to do so;" and again, "The striking fact with which we are confronted in Radnorshire is, that the persons who ought to have been on the side of order were more or less in sympathy with disturbance of order." Can it be wondered at? Before the Act of 1861 salmon-spearing and fishing for salmon fry gave, in the scarcity of better sport, some amusement to the men living on the upper waters of the Wye. The Act declares spears and fry fishing illegal. The clauses containing these provisions excited at first

much hostility among the Wye men to the Bill. This opposition was in no small part allayed by the promise held out to them of a fairer share in the produce they bred. These promises were made in good faith by the promoters of the Bill and of fishery reform, in the belief that the principles of the Act of 1861 would be extended rather than departed from, and a more even distribution of the fish insured. This has not been done. The Act has fulfilled the expectations formed of it, but its essential policy of restraint on overfishing has not been pursued. After numerous inquiries the upper proprietors of the Wye remain as badly or perhaps worse supplied with fish than they were before 1861, and have also lost their poor compensation of spear and fry fishing.

The case of the Wye is hopeless, as the case of all rivers must be hopeless so long as the upper proprietors are unjustly treated. Unless those on the Wye are disposed, in Messrs. Walpole and Huxley's words, to "exert the full force of their legal, social, and moral authority," the poaching so long practised on the Upper Wye can never be put down. Is that exertion to be expected from men who not only have no interest in its result, but are suffering from a just sense of ill-usage? To discuss restoring to them their spear and fry fishing, as some of them have requested, is idle. It could have no effect but to quicken the extermination of the fish. "There are not fish enough to breed, so let us kill what there are,"—that is the plain meaning of those who ask for the permission.

Remembering the difficulty of obtaining definite evidence, strong proof has I think been given to show that the chief cause of the decrease is to be found in the excessive net-fishing-in circumstances, in short, over which Parliament has ready control, a control it has constantly exercised and will have to exercise again if it cares for the existence of salmon in British waters. There is, indeed, only one course that can be taken with success: the limitations are insufficient; make them sufficient. They are so unfair in their incidence that the law cannot be enforced, and its whole object is defeated. Make them fair as far as possible. To carry out these objects, act as if solely influenced by the interest of the consumer, and, receiving all complaints of the private owners with a deaf ear and a heart made light by the certainty that they will be the first to profit, firmly take such measures as will lead to the production of the largest possible amount of fish.

Of all methods of limitation the most effectual is that of "prohibition." This antidote to over-fishing should be applied to net-fishing in inland water. The fresh water alone is fitted for the rod, and the use of nets in it generally, or to the extent to which they are now used, allows of a greater capture of fish than the necessities of reproduction can justify. The limb destroys the health of the whole body; cut it off. Is not this better than, for the sake of permitting a few men to

retain engines whose use has rendered their use almost useless, to cause whole rivers to remain unproductive? In fresh waters, then, permit the rod, but prohibit the net.

It will be necessary also to restrict the net in tidal waters, for no river could produce fish enough to permit of unrestricted netting, even in those waters only. The best method of restricting the capture by nets is, first, the prohibition of all fixed engines, as all means of taking fish that are not movable are termed. The destructive character of fixed engines has always been, and is now, almost universally acknowledged, though unfortunately not universally enforced. Secondly, by enacting a "close season." Of close seasons there are two kinds, weekly and annual. The extension of either is open to objection. A longer weekly close season leaves the fishermen out of work, at a great loss to the employers, for a considerable portion of the week. They must be paid a week's wages for five days' or perhaps four days' work. A longer annual close season would leave the market unsupplied for a longer period when the fish are still in condition; and as an annual close season, to be effective, must be general, and accompanied by prohibition of sale, much hardship would be inflicted upon the smaller rivers by fixing an earlier date of commencement, and on the larger by fixing a later date of termination, than those-viz. Sept. 1, Feb. 1-named in the Act of 1861. But there is another form as yet never applied to salmon that would not be open to these objections, and in other respects would be highly advantageous, viz. a nightly close season. At the present moment the fisheries are very generally worked night and day by double sets of men. The rule adopted in one fishery must be followed by those above and below, for they are all fishing one against the other. The great outlay in wages thus occasioned must be paid for in fish before any profit is made. The effect of a nightly close season in the tidal fisheries would be a diminished take, but also a diminished expenditure. The diminished take would leave a larger breeding stock. The larger breeding stock would yield a larger production, and the fisheries would give a less gross, but a larger, or as large, nett return. Let us look at this in detail, or perhaps an example will serve more readily the purpose of explanation.

There is a river in the north of Scotland that has two net fisheries at its mouth, and is fished above by both net and rod. The yearly nett yield of each of the two lower fisheries was until recently on an average about £500 a year. Some three or four years ago the lower of these fisheries was let by tender to a Perth man at an increased rental. He fished as Perth men fish, better or at least as well as any net-fishermen in the world. His system was shortly learnt by the men above him. Fishing night and day throughout the season was adopted, and for two years increased profits were made. The third year the fishery failed. Of the lower of the two fisheries I

only know generally that that season and the one succeeding were bad. The upper could earn no rent in either year. In the third it scarcely made its working expenses; and in the fourth, not earning the expenses of the night crew, it was discharged. The fisheries above, rod and net, were of course almost destroyed. The first two years were good and the last bad, because the breeding as well as the surplus stock had been killed. On the four years the nett profits did not equal the nett profits of the four preceding seasons, and now the river is fished out.

It is not true that there are as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it. Under systems sanctioned by this beguiling proverb, salmon before 1861 had nearly become extinct in England; oysters have since risen to 4d. apiece; mussels are scarce, lobsters and crabs are hard to get. The Dublin Bay haddock of a generation ago is rarely to be seen. Herrings have "deserted" an inlet for years, and soles have become one of the dearest instead of the cheapest of fish. Wherever fish from local causes are easily taken, it is simply a matter of capture and production. Dealing with it as a question of food, i.e. of gross production, the more the fishing is in excess, the less will that production be. Regarding it as a question of profit, the larger the outlay the less will be the profit, for capture at the rate of 99 per cent. on 100 fish will not yield as much as a take of 50 per cent. on 500.

Apply the restrictions proposed to the typical case just mentioned. Under a nightly close season an increased proportion of fish would escape the lower nets. Against this loss must be set the saving in wages for the night crews. Further, the abolition of netting in the upper waters would preserve to the river for breeding purposes the fish now captured by those nets, and from the increased breeding stock would come increased production. Nor would the loss to the tidal fisheries be as great as it seems. The fish run backwards and forwards in the tideway waiting a flood, and not a small percentage of those whom the nightly close time had spared would be taken on the next days. It is in floods only, when the flood is fining, that the fish run right through, and in floods also the nets cannot "work so clean."

The inland men, such of them as have nets, would lose them, but in most cases their water would become as, or more, valuable for the rod alone than it now is for the rod and net. The water of those who have no nets now would reap a large and unmixed advantage. The increased number of fish reaching their waters would repay them for the cost of that preservation it is so essential to the fisheries that they should ungrudgingly accord.

It is well known that salmon almost invariably return from the sea to their native rivers, often indeed entering the estuaries, but most rarely the fresh waters of other rivers. Out of the numerous experiments made with marked salmon and fry, there are very few, if any, well-authenticated instances of a fish that had been marked in