is no analogy between the two cases.  But if partridges had all to migrate and return before they could be legally shot, and had, like Salmon, to come by one road, and if, like them, ninety per cent. of them became the prey of men who had neither bred nor fed them, I fancy the sportsman who reared them would want some restrictions placed on their being shot by men who had not spent a farthing in breeding and protecting them, but who took the lion’s share in their appropriation.

I saw Lord Derby on the subject last spring.  He had, however, so little time at his disposal that he could only give me a few minutes.  He said a good deal must be allowed for vested interests.  I said, “My Lord, I am a manufacturer.  When the Ten Hours Bill was passed, manufacturers were deprived of one-sixth of their fixed capital at a stroke, and had not a farthing allowed for their vested interests; nay, more, that measure involved the destruction of machinery which had cost millions.  All this was done on grounds of public policy.  And is not the Salmon question one of public policy?  If, as I suppose, the measure I advocate produced a great increase in the breed of Salmon, the estuary fisheries would be the first to profit by it.  They are the first on the river.  Indeed, the stake nets in the estuaries are taking fish daily in times of drought, when fish will not ascend the river at all.”

In 1859 we had not a fresh in the river between the 10th of April and the 1st of August.  And last year we had only a few days of flood between the beginning of May and the 31st August, when close time (for nets) commences.

I have said above that only ten days per year are allowed for the supply of fish to the upper proprietors.  I may be told that they have two months (September and October) in which they are allowed to angle for them.  True, but what are they worth?  They are not allowed to be sold, they are not fit to eat, the fish are black (or red), the milt and spawn nearly at maturity, and the only temptation they offer is to the poacher (who often pots the roe as a bait for Trout); and he is a poacher, whatever his rank or station, who will kill an October fish when full of spawn.

Last year, at my suggestion, a meeting of gentlemen interested in Salmon fisheries was convened at Worcester, during the meeting there of the Royal Agricultural Society, and a number of suggestions were made, and resolutions were come to, which were intended to serve as a basis for the desired alterations in the Salmon Bill of 1861.  I have no memoranda to which I can now refer, but the most important, according to my recollection, were the following:—­The extension of the weekly close time; the annual close time to be extended to Trout; a right to be given to all conservators and water-bailiffs, duly appointed, to pass along the banks of Salmon rivers without being deemed guilty of trespass; a tax on fishing-nets, rods, and implements, to defray the expenses of protecting the rivers from poachers.