COMMITTEE. (Hansard, 8 May 1867)

SIR HENRY WINSTON - BARRON
moved that the Bill be referred to a Select Committee, remarking that two Commissions had arrived at diametrically opposite conclusions on the subject of the measure.

§ MR. BLAKE
said, he did not expect there would be any objection to this course. The Chief Secretary was quite disposed that it should be done, and the only obstacle had been the delay about the Fishery Convention with France. The terms of that treaty were known, and as its operation would only extend to within three miles of the coast, and he supposed would not differ much from the late Convention, there was no good reason why the Committee should not, in the first instance, proceed to the consideration of matters which only related to Ireland, and when the Convention came out take it into consideration also. It was said that a general Fishery Act for the kingdom would be introduced. He was not prepared to deny that a good Bill for England would also be suitable to Ireland. But there were peculiar circumstances about Ireland which called for special legislation on the fishery question. It was then too late for him to enter fully into the subject; but he was 212 quite prepared to prove that without peculiar remedies being applied, the Irish fisheries would never be raised from their present depressed and sinking condition. If he was invested with absolute powers for even half-a-dozen years, and given the disposal of £500,000, he would stake his very existence that within that period he would give remunerative and healthy employment to an additional 500,000 people, enrich Ireland to the extent of £5,000,000 a year, and give to the kingdom £15,000,000 worth of additional food, besides forming a splendid nursery for the Mercantile and Royal Naval Marine, and in the end pay back nearly all the money advanced. Although he knew as much as any man in the Empire, perhaps, about the inland and sea fisheries, and knew almost every river and creek in Ireland, he did not want anything to be received on his own authority—he was ready to quote received authorities for everything he said. He believed the coasts and inland waters of Ireland might be made as remunerative as all the land of which it was composed. He had furnished nearly every Member of that House with printed papers showing what might be done by the deep-sea and coast fisheries, especially in oysters, and he defied a single statement to be contradicted. Surely no Government ought to deny a Committee to investigate so important a matter. He believed a late Lord of the Admiralty, and who had been one of the Royal Commission on Fisheries, intended to object to the Bill going into Committee unless he (Mr. Blake) would take out the clauses authorizing loans to fishermen. Now, he begged to tell the hon. Gentleman that he would do nothing of the kind. These clauses constituted the very essence of the Bill, and he would rather lose it altogether than give up that portion of the Bill.

SIR HERVEY BRUCE
said, that the Bill would unsettle all the fishery laws of the kingdom; and he asked, whether the hon. Gentleman would consent to the insertion of a clause saving all rights of salmon fisheries as established by law?

§ MR. BLAKE
was willing to give that assurance. The Bill was not meant to interfere with salmon fisheries at all.

LORD NAAS
said, the proper course would be to wait for the result of the French Fishery Convention, and he suggested the postponement of the Bill for a week with this object. The Government did not wish to obstruct the Bill in any way, and in a 213 week they would be able to decide whether it might be properly referred to a Select Committee.