§ Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee, read.
§ LORD CAIRNScalled attention to the 16th clause, of which he said he should probably feel it to be his duty to move the omission in Committee. The Act of 1863 gave power to the Commissioners of Fisheries in Ireland to order the destruction of stake nets where they deemed them to be illegal, but that power was to be exercised subject to an appeal to the Queen's Bench under a special case. As a matter of fact, a number of orders had been made by the Commissioners in accordance with the authority thus vested in them, and had, on appeal to the Court of Queen's Bench, been reversed. The Commissioners, notwithstanding, refused to grant certificates as to the legality of the fishing in those instances, and the Act of 1863 contained no provision to meet that difficulty. That being so, the present Bill proposed to enact that no mode of fishing should be legal unless the certificate of the Commissioners was obtained—thus rendering valueless by a sort of side wind the decisions of the Queen's Bench, and to declare that to be legal which the court had declared to be illegal. That was a point on which he should like to have some explanation from the Government.
§ House in Committee.
§ Clauses 1 to 15, inclusive, agreed to.
1068§ Clause 16 (Penalty for fishing with fixed engine without certificate of commissioners or inspectors).
LORD DUFFERINsaid, that, as far as he was instructed, the clause was not open to the criticism which the noble and learned Lord had put upon it; but he thought the point which had been raised had better be dealt with on the Report.
§ LORD CAIRNSsaid, that if a clause were introduced on the Report, which would entirely save the decisions of the Court of Queen's Bench, he would be satisfied.
§ An Amendment made: The Report thereof to be received To-morrow.