§ Mr. SoamesI beg to move, in page 20, line 17, to leave out "(howsoever derived".
This is a small Amendment simply designed to remove any possible source of doubt about the meaning of the Clause. It refers to the words "(howsoever derived)" in the context of the rights of shell fishing, and these words appear in subsection (1, b). This paragraph provides that the Minister's powers to cleanse and restock shellfish beds do not apply to any beds where a private right of fishery exists, and the words "(howsoever derived)" were included with the intention of making it clear that it makes no difference how the private right came into being. If a private right exists, the Minister has no power to do the work of cleansing and restocking out of public funds.
In fact, these words do not add anything to the legal meaning of the Clause since the fact that the paragraph refers simply to waters in which a person has an exclusive right to fish without saying anything about the source of his rights is enough in itself to cover every possible case. But it has been suggested that the words do even more than that and might be held to legalise a situation in which a person was illegally claiming a right to a private fishery.
While I am advised that they could not in fact bear such a construction, we do not wish to encourage any such ideas and we are therefore removing the words "howsoever derived", which we can do without in any way harming the sense of the Clause. In other words, it would appear that these words do not contribute anything to the Clause and only lead to possible misunderstanding. The Amendment is designed to take them out.
§ Amendment agreed to.