Besides pollution, two things are especially detrimental to the Scottish salmon fisheries. The first to be mentioned, is the abominable practice of building weirs across rivers in order to send water into mill-lades, and the ignoring of the law that requires that the water shall be periodically diverted into the river again. Certain proprietors, to make the most of their lands, give perpetual leases of ground to manufacturers of one kind or other, with liberty to build a weir and take water to turn their machinery. There may be provisions in the lease as there is in law to the effect that the withdrawal of water shall cease during the night and on Sundays. Such provisions are, however, in many instances neglected, as giving too much trouble. The result is, that the whole river, or very nearly the whole, except in times of flood, is diverted into the mill-lade, whereby trout and salmon are unable to surmount the weir, and are effectually barred from getting to the upper part of the stream. In plain terms, by the selfishness of a proprietor (or a pair of them, one on each side), all who dwell on the river above the weir are deprived of the fish which nature had bountifully assigned to them. Already in these pages we have alluded to a scandalous case of this kind on the Tweed.
The second of the two things which act detrimentally on the Scottish salmon fisheries is the circumstance that certain landed proprietors near the mouths of some rivers possess a right to establish nets for the purpose of catching all the salmon that attempt to go up the stream. We do not contest the legality of their arrangements. We only speak of the cruel way it acts on the rights of all who live in the upper parts of the river, and on whose waters the salmon have bred. While the lower proprietors catch the great bulk of the fish, those higher up get but a miserable remnant. During the whole of the time that the nets are on, the lower proprietors have a practical monopoly of the fishings. Is that at all reasonable? As a consequence, first of the weirs, and second of the netting system of the lower proprietors, there is evoked throughout the upper part of rivers in Scotland, a gloomy and almost vengeful hatred of the existing salmon-fishing system. Of course the higher and middle classes take no part in demonstrating their sense of the injustice that is committed. The lower classes, less scrupulous, and indignant at the rapacity of the weir-owners and lower proprietors, take such salmon as they can get hold of in spawning-time, thus destroying by myriads in embryo what should have been a vast national advantage. Detesting as we do all sorts of poaching and irregularities, we are glad that the Commissioners appointed to investigate the condition of the Scottish salmon fisheries, have laid stress upon the miserable imperfections to which we have ventured to draw attention.
Mr Young informs us that in 1874, as many as 32,180 boxes of Scotch salmon were sent to the London market alone, the estimated value of which might possibly be L.321,800. It seems to us, however, a hard case that the great bulk of such valuable property should be secured by proprietors at or near the mouths of the several rivers, to the exclusion of those in the upper reaches of the streams, who ought to have an equal right to participate in the annual fish-harvest. Free-trade in salmon-fishing, so much as lies within the limits of strict justice, is still in expectation. We commend the subject to the further consideration of Frank Buckland, Mr Young, and brother-anglers.
RACHEL LINDSAY.
A SOUTH-AUSTRALIAN STORY.
Towards the end of November, about two years ago, I received the following curt note from my brother Donald, who like myself is a sheep-farmer in South Australia. ‘My dear Jerry, Lizzie sends her love, and hopes to see you when your shearing is over, as usual. If you’ll say what day, I’ll fetch you from Ballarat.—Yours affectionately,
Don Gardiner.’
‘N.B.—Just begun to wash the wool. Lizzie’s sister says she has seen my apparatus at Conolly’s, but I don’t think it. Ask Conolly.’
Conolly was a neighbour of mine, and he chanced to have brought me Don’s letter, and to be lighting his pipe at my elbow while I read it.