I will take the river Ribble to illustrate my meaning. As a general rule we have no fresh run Salmon until May, and the upper proprietors are supposed to have a sufficient share of the fish that ascend the stream if the owners of the fisheries in the estuary and the tidal part of the river cease to net from six o'clock on the Saturday night to six o'clock on the Monday morning. That is a day and a half per week. The fishing for Salmon (except angling) ceases on the 31st of August, and from the 1st of May to the 31st of August there are 123 days. Call the period eighteen weeks, which gives us twenty-seven days during which time the Salmon have liberty to pass to the upper parts of the river. But on the average of seasons, owing to droughts, the rapid absorption of moisture by vegetation, and the great evaporation, there is no fresh water to enable the fish to ascend during two- thirds of that time. Every one who knows anything of the habits of Salmon is aware that they never ascend the rivers from the estuary unless there is a fresh in the river; and, as I said before, on the average of seasons there is no fresh for two-thirds of the time from May to August. This reduces the twenty-seven days (which are supposed to feed the upper proprietors with Salmon to repletion) to nine days, and these nine days are expected to stock the river and its tributaries for one hundred miles. It is true I have not taken into consideration the privileges which the upper proprietors have of angling to the 1st of November; but besides the fact that the fish are then full of spawn, and ought not to be killed at all, very few rise at the fly, and when they are taken they can neither be sold nor used by any one who knows what a fresh Salmon is. It is a greater crime against public polity to kill a spawning Salmon than it is to steal a sheep; for, supposing it produces 10,000 ova, and one in a hundred returns as a Salmon, it returns from a place (the sea) where it has cost nothing in rent, taxes, or superintendence, and, in the finest condition imaginable, it invites us to take it.
Mr. Horsfall and I both wish for the same results (rivers swarming with fish), and although we may somewhat differ as to details, I have no doubt both would be glad to see public attention directed to these matters rather more than it is at present.
If Mr. Horsfall will do me the honour to come and see me, I will show him an efficient fish-pass which has been in operation forty years. It may suggest some ideas to him, and he may be able to suggest some improvements in it which I should be glad to receive.
I am, Gentlemen,
Your obedient Servant,
THOMAS GARNETT.
* * * * *
LOW MOOR, 4th January, 1865.
DEAR SIR,—As I believe Mr. Eden, the Commissioner of Salmon fisheries, is visiting various districts connected with Salmon rivers in England and Wales, with a view of explaining the proposed alterations and additions to the bill of 1861, and as I think from what I have learnt that the proposed alterations and additions will not be satisfactory to the upper proprietors of Salmon rivers, I wish to call your attention to the matter, that, if he should come into this district, the gentlemen interested may be able to point out to him how far these alterations are from meeting their wishes. Supposing that the new bill (as published in the "Field" newspaper, and explained and commented on by Mr. Eden) is to be understood as a government measure and one in which they will allow of no alterations, I maintain that it is very objectionable both from what it omits and what it purposes to do.
To begin with the former, or, in other words, to take the recommendations of the Worcester meeting as the groundwork of new legislation, it does not touch on several of them; they were, so far as I remember (for I have no memoranda to refer to) an extension of the weekly and annual close time—minimum penalties: —a close time for Trout, and a right of way on the banks of Salmon rivers for all water-bailiffs, duly appointed, without their being deemed guilty of trespass; and a tax on fishery nets and implements, for the purpose of defraying the expenses of protection.
Now, so far as I understand the bill as proposed, the only one of these recommendations included in it is the tax. I am wrong in this—the taxation is not included in the bill, but was suggested by Mr. Eden at the meeting he attended lately at Chester. The bill proposes that the choice of conservators shall be vested in the magistrates at quarter sessions, and the conservators shall have power to expend all the funds raised by voluntary subscriptions for certain purposes mentioned in the act. But Mr. Eden suggested at Chester that if these funds were inadequate the conservators should have the power of supplementing them by a rate on the owners and lessees of fisheries in proportion to their extent. Now one man may have an estate on the banks of a river extending for miles from which he derives little or no revenue; while another may have a fishery not extending more yards than the other does miles, but from which he derives a revenue of as many pounds as the other does pence. If Mr. Eden's meaning is lineal extent, I feel very sure it will not meet with the approval of the upper riparian proprietors. Again, why should the magistrates in quarter sessions (nine-tenths of whom know nothing of Salmon or Salmon rivers) choose the conservators? What, for instance, would the magistrates meeting at Wakefield know of the Ribble or the Hodder? What would they care about the matter? They would choose the men who had power to tax the riparian proprietors and lessees; but as they would not be taxed themselves, they would look on with great composure. No; if we are to be taxed, let us tax ourselves, and not leave it to those who will have no interest in the matter, and who may involve us in litigation and expense over which we shall have no control.
The recommendations of the Worcester committee deserved more consideration on the part of Government. They were suggested by men of great experience, and, moreover, unless they are adopted and legalized by Parliament there can be no permanent prosperity for Salmon rivers. Take the extension of close time as an instance. It cannot be right that the owners or lessees of estuary fisheries shall be allowed to take ninety per cent. of the fish which they have neither bred nor fed, and whose well-being and increase they have done nothing to promote; while the upper proprietors, on whom devolve all the care, trouble, and expense, are to rest satisfied with what the thirty-six hours per week can give them. What did they give the upper proprietors on the Ribble and the Hodder last season? Little or nothing. When the bill of 1861 was before the House of Commons, I had an opportunity of suggesting (indirectly) to the late Sir George Cornewall Lewis the propriety and desirableness of an extension of the weekly close time for the benefit of the upper proprietors. He replied, "You might as well propose to restrict the shooting of partridges to three days a week as to restrict the netting of Salmon." But with all due deference to so great an authority, there is no analogy between the two cases. If partridges had all to migrate and return before they could be legally shot, and had, like the Salmon, all to return by the same road, ninety per cent. of them before reaching the district where they were reared would become the prey of men who had neither bred nor fed them. I fancy sportsmen would want protection for them; and if they were not able to obtain it, they would do what is seriously proposed by many people with regard to the Salmon—they would do all they could to exterminate them, rather than continue to act as brood hens to hatch chickens for other men's eating.