§ No district board shall appoint any person to be a water bailiff unless the name of such person has been submitted to and approved by the county council or county councils of the district in which he is to work and the appointment of such person as water bailiff shall be immediately terminated if the said county councils, or any one of them, finds that such person is not a suitable person to be a water bailiff.—[Mr. Macdonald.]
§ Brought up, and read the First time.
Mr. MacdonaldI beg to move, "That the Clause be read a Second time."
The regretful fact has to be faced that in the public eye the prestige of many of the Tweed bailiffs leaves a great deal to be desired.
§ Lord DunglassOh, no.
Mr. MacdonaldThey are employed by the Tweed Commissioners, and consequently the type of man available for what is generally only a seasonal job is, on the whole, rather poor. It has been felt by many anglers in my constituency, and probably in other parts of Scotland, that the first step in the rehabilitation of water bailiffs would be the improved status of being approved by the appropriate county councils as a guardian of the stream instead of as a member of a private body. Public opinion regarding the appointment of the bailiffs is ripe for a change. Government by consent in fishing as elsewhere is only acceptable if both the law and its officials are regarded as fair and reasonable.
The Lord Advocate may argue that a body that does not pay the bailiffs should not appoint them, but I believe that the county council could make a token payment to these men, and the bulk of their wages will still be paid by the river board. The appointees will therefore be likely, as a result, to have the interest of the angler at heart instead of primarily that of the riparian owners as at present. There are seven county councils who would need to be consulted in this matter, and in my belief there is no reason why 344 a small committee cannot be appointed from those county councils to appoint these bailiffs and thereby raise considerably their status and the respect of the general public for them. I hope that the Lord Advocate will agree to incorporate this proposed new Clause in the Bill.
§ Lord DunglassI hope that the Lord Advocate will resist this new Clause. The hon. Member for Roxburgh and Selkirk (Mr. Macdonald) made an assertion which cannot possibly be borne out by anybody who has had experience of the river when he said that water bailiffs are looked upon by the inhabitants of the area bordering the Tweed with suspicion, and far more than that. I thought he might raise this, and I have brought several columns of the Press which express appreciation of the way the cases are handled. In prosecutions we have had something under 2 per cent. failures, and about half those who are brought to our superintendent are let off and not prosecuted for a first offence, which seems to show that the water bailiff and the superintendent operating on the Tweed are very sympathetic.
The hon. Gentleman also said that this is only a seasonal business. But the Tweed is open for ten months of the year, and I suggest that he remember that. To have to consult seven county councils every time a water bailiff is appointed would be most unnecessary and cumbersome, and I hope the Lord Advocate will resist this new Clause.
§ The Lord AdvocateI rather hesitate to intervene in this internal warfare between hon. Members opposite, but without going into the merits or demerits or the virtues or vices of water bailiffs, let me give the technical reason why this proposal is quite impracticable. The employment of water bailiffs is authorised by Statute, generally by the 1862 Act and in respect of the River Tweed by the 1857 Act, and the district boards are charged under the Statutes with the protection and maintenance of the salmon. Accordingly, the suitability of persons whom they take into their employ to enable them to discharge their several duties is a matter for them and for no one else.
The local authorities, the county councils, do not come into the picture at all, and it would be a very difficult principle to accept that a person employing 345 somebody, whether as a water bailiff or otherwise, should require to get the consent and approval of an outside body who had no concern in the matter. I think one needs only to enunciate that principle to see how unacceptable this new Clause is. For those reasons, I am afraid we cannot accept the Clause.
§ Motion and Clause, by leave, with-drawn.