Lords Sitting of 20 November 1893

SEA FISHERIES REGULATION (SCOTLAND) BILL.

  PETITIONS PRESENTED.
  THE EARL OF STRATHMOREpresented a Petition against the Bill from the Lord Provost, Magistrates, and Town Council of Dundee.
  THE MARQUESS OF HUNTLYpresented Petitions against the Bill from the County Council of Aberdeen, Provosts, and Town Councils of Aberdeen, Inverbervie, and Inverurie, and Aberdeen House Proprietors' Association, Aberdeen Chamber of Commerce, and the owners of lands and heritages in the Counties of Aberdeen and Kincardine.
  LORD PLAYFAIRpresented 34 Petitions in favour of the Bill from various towns and villages on the coasts of Scotland. He thought it unnecessary to read the list of names in detail. They were signed by between 4,000 and 5,000 separate signatories and by the Corporations named.
  THE DUKE OF ARGYLLsaid, he would be glad if the noble Lord could give the list of names, as he desired to know the character of the places represented—whether they were fishing villages or important towns.
  LORD PLAYFAIRwas not sufficiently familiar with them to be able to say whether they were Corporations or villages, but he would read out the names—Fishermen, &c. of Macduff, Boddam, Torry, Catterline, Johnshaven, Pennan, Ferryden, Buckie, Pittullie, Buckhaven, Cullen, Gardenstown, Port Gordon, Dunbar, St. Combs, Sandend, Findochty, Whitehills, Portknockie, Crovio, Collieston, Fraserburgh, Rosehearty, Burghead, Portsoy, Peterhead, &c. Sketraw, Lybster, Broro, Rockfield, Burnmouth, and Lossiemouth; Commissioners of Fraserburgh; County Councils of Fife, and Clackmannan; and Provost, &c. of Buckie and Dundee.
  THE DUKE OF ARGYLLstated, that in that list of Petitions in favour of the measure, just read by the noble Lord, there were only one or two which were
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  not from small fishing villages, whilst the Petitions against it came from some of the largest towns and Corporations in Scotland.
  THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWNpresented Petitions against the Bill from the County Councils of the Counties of Forfar, Wigtown, Renfrew, Nairn, and the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright, and the Councils of the Boroughs of Brechin and Greenock.
  LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGHpresented a Petition from the County Council of Clackmannan praying for the Amendment of the Bill.

  SECOND READING.
  Order of the Day for the Second Reading, read.
  LORD PLAYFAIRsaid, the Bill for which he had to ask a Second Reading was to carry out a Resolution unanimously passed in the House of Commons, and as that Resolution really described the whole scope of the Bill, with one exception with regard to salmon fisheries, he might almost take the Resolution as the speech in support of the measure. The Resolution which was adopted in March, 1892, declared—
  "That a large representative element should be introduced into the Scotch Fishery Board; that a sufficient number of Fishery District Committees should be instituted to take charge of local fishery interests on the coasts of Scotland; that powers should be granted by the Commissioners of Woods and Forests to such District Fishery Committees to issue licences to fishermen to fish for salmon on suitable parts of the coasts of Scotland"—
  that is not included in the Bill, and, therefore, that part of the Resolution is not required—
  "that proof should be required of the titles under which Scotch mussel scalps are claimed and held; that power should be given to districts to regulate, acquire, and work mussel scalps within their several districts; and that the regulations from time to time made in the interests of the various classes of fishermen working in Scottish seas should be enforced by an effective system of sea police."
  That Resolution, which was proposed by Mr. Marjoribanks in the House of Commons and passed unanimously, was the outcome of numerous inquiries by Royal Commissions and Parliamentary and Departmental Committees during the last 30 years. Mr. Marjoribanks was a high authority on Scotch fisheries, and he introduced a Bill on which the present

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  measure was mainly founded, though portions of it were derived from Bills brought forward by the late Government. This Bill had been fully discussed and seriously amended in Committee in the House of Commons, and finally passed unanimously. The Bill reformed and gave a representative character to the Central Board of Fishery which had long existed in Scotland. At the present moment the members of that body were nominated by the Crown; but under the Bill the Crown would have only three nominations: it would nominate the Chairman, a scientific expert—a position which was at present held by an extremely distinguished man, Professor Macintyre—and a lawyer, who was to guide the acts of the Board. There would be added to the Board eight local representatives from the same number of fishery districts created by the Bill, and these fishery nominees must be men engaged in fishing, and possessing practical knowledge of the subject. The representative character of the Central Board and District Committees was included in Lord Lothian's Bill of 1892, the difference between the two Bills being that in that Bill the representation was indirect, while in this Bill it was by popular election. No doubt when the Bill came into Committee there would be a good deal of discussion upon the mode of voting, but that was a question of detail, and the Government would be pleased to hear their Lordships1 opinions upon the subject. Both Lord Lothian's Bill of 1892 on behalf of the late Government and the Bill of the present Government contemplated paying expenses out of the general rates of the county; but this measure went much further than Lord Lothian's, because under the latter the Secretary of State for Scotland had power to apportion the rates in the county, and this Bill contained no such power. Also in Lord Lothian's Bill mussel beds for bait were to be purchased by Votes of Parliament; this Bill proposed to do it out of rates. Therefore, though the principle of payment out of rates was in both Bills, it was carried out in this measure in a much more decided manner than in Lord Lothian's Bill. As regarded rates, this Bill was not founded upon Lord Lothian's Bill, but upon a Bill passed by the late Government in 1888, introduced by Sir
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  Michael Hicks-Beach in regard to Fishery Committees and fishery control for England. In that Bill all the matters regarding rates were precisely as they were in this measure. District Committees were to be appointed, and, being appointed, their expenses were to be upon the common rates of the counties and boroughs. There was no exception made as to landward or seaward districts. The expenses were made a general charge upon the county rates.
  LORD BALFOURsaid, that the County Councils in England were given distinctly the powers of control as to salaries and other expenses.
  LORD PLAYFAIRsaid, that was quite possible, and he would take it so upon the noble Lord's statement. One difference between the Bill of 1888 and this measure was that this Bill limited the payment to 1d. in the £1, but the Bill of the late Government had no other limitation as to rate but that just alluded to by Lord Balfour. They had had four years' experience of the 1888 Act. Under it 10 fishery District Committees had already been formed, and it was anticipated there would be 17 or 18. In nine of these the yearly expenses of carrying out the purposes of the Act, which had to be provided out of the general county rates, did not exceed £300. In one—the Lancashire fishery district—the expenses last year were £3,936, or about one-twentieth of a 1d. rate on the value of rateable property in the Lancashire county and county boroughs, some contributions of a small amount being made from Cheshire and Cumberland. This Lancashire Committee was an active one. It had bought and equipped a steamer to carry out its work, and he was informed by Lancashire Members that it did excellent work, and that no opposition of any kind existed in Lancashire to this expenditure, or to the charge on the rates. It was expected by the promoters of the Bill that the expenses upon the rates would only continue for one or two years until the beds for bait were laid down and acquired by the public, and then the profits from these beds as shewn by the experience at St. Andrews and Montrose were likely to meet all the expenses without assessment. That, however, was an expectation which might not be realised in all cases. The question was whether that 1d. rate would be suffi-

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  cient to carry out the purposes of the Bill. As the Bill went originally to the House of Commons the rate was 3d., but it was there very wisely reduced to 1d., for, as far as he could calculate, the 1d. was considerably more than would in any case be needed. As an illustration, supposing Aberdeen took the matter up as actively as Lancashire and spent £ 1,000—not being so large a county—for the purposes of the Bill, one-sixth of a 1d. would meet that expenditure. Then to take the case of Fife—not going so far as Aberdeen—of spending £500, that would only be one-ninth of a 1d. upon the rateable valuation, so that the 1d. would probably be ample to carry out the Board's expenses. At any rate, they would not; get anymore. If power was given to the fishery districts to obtain money for their expenses out of the rates it was obvious there should be a good central control over them, otherwise they might go too fast and create a reaction against the Bill. Therefore, the Act of 1888 gave that control for England to the Board of Trade. The present Bill for Scotland gave it to the Central Fishery Board. Such a Board had technical and local knowledge, and could readily restrain excessive zeal and moderate local prejudices. The Board of Trade had no practical knowledge of fishing, and must be mainly guided by the advice and superior knowledge of the Fishery Committees, and could not exercise the control which was desirable in a matter of this kind. It was necessary not only to moderate their zeal, but to distinguish between their prejudices which in different parts of the country were in fishing matters very great. Lord Camperdown proposed to throw out this Bill; but he hoped after its purport had been explained the noble Lord would not move his Resolution in face of the strong feeling in Scotland in its favour. Probably he rather wished to force a discussion, so that the Government might by anticipation give him information—[The Earl of CAMPERDOWN: No, no!]—to justify the principles in the Bill, which ho thought were novel. There was nothing novel in the principle of levying a rate over the whole county. It was contained in the late Government's Act of 1888, and he could not see why there should be any alarm in reference to the matter on the present occa-
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  sion. Parliament had never made a close division of separate interests, and there were already Acts in which the county rates were employed for purposes limited to a special class of the population. It had never been the practice of Parliament to scan very closely whether county rates were to be employed for general purposes all over the country, and to exclude those who did not benefit by the expenditure. To take the case of the fishermen: They did not use the county roads; their roads were on the sea, but they were taxed all the same. He would give one instance where the late Government had done exactly what this Bill proposed to do. That was the Western Highlands Act (1891) for the construction of small piers, harbours, and boatslips. That Act provided that, if there was any deficiency from other sources, the cost of construction and maintenance was to be provided out of the general county rate. There was the principle; not only was the deficiency in the cost of improvement, but the deficiency in cost of maintenance—should there be any—was to be met in that way. Another instance was the Small Holdings Act for Scotland, under which the general county rates were to provide the money for the purchase of holdings in any particular district not necessarily useful to other people in the district. It that case the county hoped to be recouped by the rents, and in this Bill, by Clause 15, royalties and profits were expected to render assessment unnecessary. Those were precedents made not by the present, but by the late, Government, in which the county rates were applied for specific purposes, and, especially as regarded the present purpose, for the English fisheries. This matter was not treated as a Party question in the House of Commons, and he would prove to their Lordships in that House that it was not a Party question. Only a few days ago, on the 15th of this month, the National Union of Conservative Associations met in Glasgow, and this Bill was considered. A resolution was proposed that the expenses of the Act should be met by general taxation and not by local rates on seaboard counties, and to this an Amendment was moved that the Bill should be carefully considered in the House of Lords, because, as the mover explained,

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  "The principle of taxation in the Bill objected to had been applied with great success in England, and it should be left to their Lordships to consider the question."
  A vote was taken, and the amendment to the hostile resolution was carried by 73 to 25. He felt, therefore, he had a right to say that this was no Party question in Scotland, and that the large preponderance of opinion there was in favour of the Bill. He had rather taken the subjects out of order for the purpose of meeting the objections on the question of rating, which seemed to be one of the main objections to the Bill. Then with regard to the object of the measure, the purpose of District Fishery Committees was to keep alive the experience and interests of the fishing communities, and to promote adequate supplies of bait. The Central Fishery Board had long felt the want of an organised touch with the localities, and from want of this the fisheries on some parts of the coasts became sometimes completely paralysed. When he had a seat on the Scotch Fishery Board their returns showed that in certain months of the year not a single herring and scarcely any cod or ling could be caught on the western coasts, while on the eastern coasts all three kinds of fish were freely caught. The reason for that was obvious enough, but it produced discussion, and a Royal Commission was issued, of which he had the honour to be Chairman, and upon which they had the great assistance of Professor Huxley as a member. The reason why no herrings were caught on the western coasts was that Parliament had recently passed a close time for them during the spawning season; but it was not so apparent why cod and ling could not be caught. Cod and ling were amongst the most active enemies of the herring, and, when herrings prevailed, would not touch any other bait except herring bait; but as herrings could not be caught during the close time, the fishermen fished in vain with mussels, and so the cod and ling devoured herrings at leisure under the protection of the law. We sometimes found as many as 14 or 16 undigested herrings in a cod's stomach. They had no census of the number of cod and ling in the sea, but they had a return of the number of these fish salted yearly. Had these cod remained in the sea and lived on six herrings daily, they would have
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  caught more herrings than all the fishermen of the United Kingdom and 600 more fishermen added. So that, while Parliament in its wisdom passed a close time for herring, the effect was to subject them to the attacks of enemies vastly more destructive than fishermen, who were left in starvation for some mouths in the year. The result of the Commission was that the close time was abandoned. Such legislation would never have been passed if the Central Fishery Board had been in actual touch with the fishery districts. One main purpose of this Bill was to promote the bait required for fishing. Mussels formed by far the most important bait employed. When mussel - beds were properly managed they supplied an abundance for the locality, and were a considerable source of profit. It took nearly a ton of mussels to catch a ton of fish, the money value of the fish being about eight times that of the bait. The supply in Scotland in recent years had been deteriorating both in quantity and quality, and mussels had to be imported from Holland and Ireland, and the carriage added largely to their cost. Mussels varied in price from 15s. to 40s. a ton. The 15s. a ton was close to the bed, and the higher prices charged were often in places where the population was poorest, and therefore, anxious to form beds of mussels and other kinds of bait nearer to them. That had been done already in France in regard to the culture of mussels and oysters, 22,000 men being employed for that purpose. By promoting the culture of mussels in this way, it would be possible to add largely to the employment of our fishing population. One of the clauses of the Bill might induce considerable opposition. Of course power had to be given to purchase mussel beds when necessary, and put them under the District Committees. The Bill put on the District Committees the duty of cultivating and managing local mussel-beds. Primâ facie these belonged to the Crown as patrimonium principi. The Crown might have parted from them to a subject, by Charter or baronial grant. In such cases due compensation would be given to the grantee. But many of the mussel-beds were held by very shadowy claims, and the owners were called upon by this Bill to prove their claims within two years,

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  otherwise the Crown rights would be exercised. Mussel-beds under public care might be made productive and profitable; and there were crabs, lobsters, clams, whelks, cockles, and limpets, all of which, by proper regulations of a Fishery Hoard, might be made much more productive as bait. For example, herring guts had been for long a waste product and a source of nuisance in our fishing villages. At the best they could only be sold at 8s. a barrel for manure. But now they were found to be a deadly bait for haddocks in winter and spring, and were sold for from 20s. to 40s. a barrel. The Bill was of great importance to the people of Scotland; it had been foreshadowed for many years, and it did not involve Party questions. He had stated the general scope of the Bill, which was of great importance to the large fishery industries. It had been in agitation for many years. Both Conservative and Liberal Governments had brought in Bills to regulate these fisheries, and he trusted their Lordships would give a Second Reading to the Bill.
  Moved, "That the Bill be now read 2a."—(The Lord Playfair.)
  THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN moved that the Bill be read a second time this day two months. He assured their Lordships he had no intention of treating the Bill from a Party point of view, and that he had no wish in any way to decry the great importance of the national fisheries. Many of the provisions of the Bill, however, appeared open to criticism. The noble Lord had cited the Act of 1888 as a precedent for the Bill he now introduced. But there were distinctions of every kind between the two measures. In the first place, the provisions of the Act of 1888 were optional, and could only be enforced by the County Council applying to the Board of Trade for an Order; and the Order, when made, must lie for 30 days on the Table of either House before it became valid. By those Orders taxation could, no doubt, be levied on the inhabitants of the particular area, but it was levied at the instance of their own County Council. The difference between that Act and the present Bill was that, in this case the Town and County Councils had not been consulted at all, and many of them were not aware a month
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  ago of the existence of the Bill. The Bill, again, enabled the Secretary for Scotland to divide the seaboard counties of Scotland into eight districts; but there was nothing in the Bill to define the seaboard counties. As a matter of fact, the Secretary for Scotland had declared that, if the Bill passed, he should exclude from the category the Counties of Perth, Roxburgh, Selkirk, Peebles, and Lanark, including the great City of Glasgow. But why Glasgow and Perth should be excluded, or why all counties should not equally be taxed there was nothing to show. The City of Perth was very proud of its port, and when the Tay Bride was made it received compensation for injury to the extent of £20,000 or £30,000. What reason was there for taxing the seaboard counties, supposing they could be defined? The fishery interest affected the ratepayers generally, and surely these expenses should be thrown upon all the counties of Scotland without exception. Passing on to the constitution of these Fishery District Committees, one-half of them Was to be composed of "fishery members"—defined as people interested in the fishery. The real purpose of the Bill was to purchase mussels to be used by the fishermen as bait; and the general ratepayer was to be taxed for a particular industry and a Board, half of whose members were directly benefited by the taxation. But Lord Playfair had said that the expenditure was very small in some counties, and that if the mussel-beds were purchased they would become remunerative, being apparently very sanguine upon that matter. By Clause 12 a District Committee was empowered to borrow on the security of its rate. A 1d. rate would not produce a very large sum; but if it was to be raised for the purpose of mussel fisheries, the ratepayers would have a very small chance of seeing any return for their money. What reason had the "fishery members" for being economical with the rates? The real truth was that the Bill proposed to tax the general ratepayers for the benefit of one particular trade. Mr. Marjoribanks' Bill of 1892 proposed to levy a rate of 6d. in the £1 on the seaboard parishes; but that proposal met with such strong resistance that it was altered to a 3d. rate on the seaboard counties. Now a further reduction to a 1d. rate was pro-

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  posed; but he objected to the principle altogether. If money were necessary for the purchase of mussel-beds, which would shortly be remunerative, then let the nation, which would receive the benefit, find the money. But the Town and County Councils had not been consulted in any way, and they strongly objected to any taxation of this sort. Lord Playfair stated that he had considerable support in Scotland for this measure, but he had only produced Petitions from a few fishing villages against adverse Petitions from some of the largest towns and counties in Scotland. He trusted that their Lordships would be slow to give this measure a Second Reading in view of the very little consideration which was given to it by the House of Commons. On April 27 the Bill came on for Second Reading in the House of Commons about half-past 10 o'clock, and it was read a second time at 12 o'clock. On September 11 the Committee stage was taken, when it was pointed out to the House that unless the measure was treated as a non-contentious one it could not be got through. Amendments, therefore, were not pressed, and in this way the Bill passed through the House after a very short discussion on three or four clauses in Committee, with reference to which no real objection was taken. Many of those clauses required considerable amendment in order to make them intelligible or workable. He concluded by moving that the Bill be read a second time that day two months.
  THE MARQUESS OF HUNTLY,in seconding the Motion for the rejection of the Bill, said, he thought at one time that it might have been made a workable measure in Committee, but further consideration had led him to the conclusion that it was impossible to deal with a proposal affecting a limited number of the fisheries in Scotland in such a way as was proposed. Much had been made of the fact that 34 Petitions were presented in favour of the Bill, but of those Petitions 32 were from insignificant fishing villages along the north-east coast of Scotland, and the other two were from Fraserburgh and Peterhead, which were directly interested in the question. There had been presented Petitions against the Bill from the County Councils of Clackmannan, Elgin, Nairn, Forfar, Kirkcudbright, Wigton, Aberdeen, and Fife, and others; and
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  from, among other bodies, the Town Councils of Aberdeen, Dundee, Arbroath, Bervie, Brechin, Cullen, Greenock, Inverness, Leith, Montrose, and North Berwick, and from the Chamber of Commerce in Aberdeen and householders in that county, and Kincardine. He did not think after that that Lord Playfair could claim much on account of the 32 Petitions from fishing villages, which he had presented in favour of the Bill. It was said that this Bill followed the precedent of the English Act. But he would oppose a measure of this kind, no matter from which side of the House it proceeded, and especially when it was so far reaching in its scope, and dealt with important interests in such a crude manner as the present measure. Only one county in England had, he believed, adopted the principle of rating for this object—namely, Lancashire; but be showed their Lordships that the Act was looked upon in Lancashire as a failure. The Act had been in operation there for three years, and out of 16 members appointed by the Board of Trade the average attendance had fallen to nine. A piteous appeal had been made to the Board of Trade to pay the out-of-pocket expenses of the fishery nominees, but the Board replied that it had no funds for that purpose. At the first meeting of the committee, on the 16th of February, 1891, they resolved that £1,000 should be raised to meet the expenses of the current year. At their next meeting they altered the resolution, by increasing the amount to £3,803. On the 15th of February, 1892, they resolved to raise £2,595 to meet current expenses, and the assessment for the current year was estimated at £4,400. Such had been the progress of expenditure in the Lancashire district, and what had they done with it? They had not bought any mussel-beds, and the money had been wasted in salaries and official expenses. That was the statement in a letter from a person well acquainted with Lancashire, the only instance in which the scheme proposed under this Bill had been thoroughly put in operation. Lord Playfair had also stated that it was not the practice of Parliament to inquire too closely into the way money was spent by County Councils, and that when public matters wore being dealt with the County Councils were allowed to raise money and spend it themselves. But that was ex-

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  actly what was not done by this Bill, by which entirely new bodies were to be constituted, and the towns and boroughs called upon to contribute assessments upon their rateable property, the new bodies to have the spending of the money, and the County Council to have no control whatever. That was going dead against the principle which had guided Parliament in local government. That principle was to concentrate in the Municipal Boroughs and County Councils the entire management of affairs, instead of leaving the spending of money to extraneous bodies. One other point he must mention. One of the arguments in favour of the Bill was the Resolution of the House of Commons, moved by a gentleman whom Lord Playfair called "a great authority upon sea fisheries"—Mr. Marjoribanks. That Resolution dealt very generally indeed with the fisheries in Scotland, including the salmon fisheries. It was most vague, and nothing could be gathered from it establishing the principle that people living in the interior of Scotland should be rated for the purpose of carrying out the administration of an Act for giving bait to a certain limited number of fishermen who wished to catch whitings and haddocks; for that was what this Bill really proposed to do. He maintained that while no statement had been made by the noble Lord in charge of the Bill as to the number of fishermen who were in need of assistance for mussel bait, there was in reality no scarcity of bait at all. It was not three years since the industry connected with the steam line fishing had been started in the north-east of Scotland. That was an increasing industry; it was opening a way to the fishermen who were supposed to be starving, and this Bill proposed to tax those very men—owners and employed—who already paid their share of the bait they used, in order to provide bait for other men who merely fished by hand line. Before the Town and County of Aberdeen were taxed 1d. in the £1, which would bring in £5,000 a year, it should he shown that there was a deficiency of bait for these fishermen. That had not been proved.
  LORD PLAYFAIRsaid, the Departmental Committee and the Fishery Board stated there was a large deficiency in bait, and he could give the noble Lord the words if desired.
  THE MARQUESS OF HUNTLYsaid, he would describe the Bill as a measure to catch votes in a few districts of Scotland, rather than as a measure to provide bait for fishermen, and if it were adopted the House would be passing a Bill for the compulsory taxation of the seaboard counties to the extent of 1d. in the £1 in order to provide a particular set of men with a limited supply of means for their livelihood. But could they stop there? Why not go further, and provide money for the boats and hooks and lines of these men? Moreover, other industries would then expect help. He trusted that the noble Earl would press his Motion to an issue, and he would be glad to support him in the Division Lobby, and vote against a Bill which he considered crude, absurd, and iniquitous.
  Amendment moved, to leave out ("now"), and add at the end of the Motion ("this day two months.")—(The Earl of Camperdown.)
  THE DUKE OF ARGYLL: My Lords, I should be rather unwilling to vote against the Second Reading of this Bill, but I am unwilling to do so upon two-grounds only: because I think it a very bad Bill, very badly drawn, and bad in many principles which it involves. I think, in the first place, as a general rule, when a Bill comes up to the House which has passed the House of Commons upon a subject which is non-contentious, upon which there may be differences of opinion, but which in a political point of view is essentially non-contentious, it is well to give it a Second Reading. But, in the next place, I wish to say distinctly that, as far as the avowed principle of this Bill is concerned, I have no objection whatever—i.e., Clause 13 and the Preamble—first, that Scotland should be divided into districts; secondly, that the Central Fishery Board of Edinburgh should have more of a representative character than it has at present; and, thirdly, that measures should he taken for the preservation of the bait beds of Scotland. Now, my Lords, I have no objection to any one of those objects. I have no objection, first, to Scotland being divided into fishing districts, provided it is done upon some intelligible principle: secondly, I have no objection to the Fishing Board of Edinburgh being represented, provided it is fully explained to us. What do you

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  mean by represented? Represented by whom? If you mean by one particular individual alone, I object; but the Bill merely says that it is to be one element. Then, with regard to the bait, I have no objection to that, but I have a very strong opinion that Parliamentary action is necessary for the purpose. The mussel-beds of Scotland are in a very dangerously delicate condition, owing to the small number of proprietors who have any right of property in them at all. There are, however, some individual owners who have always defended their bait beds, and have managed them very well—the Burgh of Thane, for instance, has a very valuable mussel-bed. I do object to the principle on which this Bill deals with those beds. On all those grounds which I have mentioned I have no objection to the principle of the Bill. But when I come to the way in which those principles are carried into effect, I have the greatest possible objection that Scotland should be divided into districts for fishery purposes. What is the principle of your divisions? In the first place, those who drew the Bill have mapped out Scotland for these Fishing Boards. It specifies that Scotland is to be divided into eight districts, and yet it does not specify what those districts are. In short, you are keeping back from Parliament in this case the conclusion at which you have yourselves arrived; you do not face Parliament fairly, and tell them what your districts are. Then there is one thing to which I have a serious objection. You have fixed the number as eight, but the coast of Scotland may be divided roughly into four possible districts. On the east coast the conditions of the open sea fishing are in the main the same. From Berwick-on-Tweed to the Pentland Firth the east coast of Scotland is practically under one set of conditions. The Pentland Firth has circumstances peculiar to itself, and might possibly form a second district. Then, when you come down on the west coast from Cape Wrath to the Clyde you have again one set of conditions, and from the Clyde to the Sol way you have the fourth. Those would be the four principal divisions of Scotland if you were to look at the matter geographically and in reference to the fishing interests. How you are to map out Scotland in this way I cannot
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  conceive, unless it be upon some gerrymandering principle for local purposes. What those purposes may be I do not know. But there is one principle, which is quite obvious on the face of the Bill, to which I object very much; that is, that the seaboard districts alone are to bear a certain tax. I entirely object to that. The truth is, that those districts are often the least interested in the consumption of fish. Everybody knows that on the east coast of England you cannot get good fish, because they are sent off to Loudon. And so it is in Scotland; the consumption is in the interior, and the production of the fish is round the coast. Why you should tax the small farmers and the crofters of Aberdeenshire simply because they are on the coast I do not know. I do not think that is a fair or reasonable proposal. Now, with regard to the principle upon which this matter of rating is managed my noble Friend, Lord Playfair, tried to quote as a precedent the case of the English Act, but the principle of the Act is very different. I do not think it is right that Parliament should give the County Councils the power of raising a separate rate as a subvention for aiding special industries. It is a bad habit, and the more you encourage it the farther you will have to go. Sir George Trevelyan, in the Debates on the Crofters Act, said he objected to any subventions for the purpose of aiding the crofters at the time. No doubt the utterances of Sir George Trevelyan are variable things; and since that time subventions have been given to the crofters for various local purposes. Then my noble Friend, Lord Playfair, quoted the case of the Small Holdings Act. It is quite true that Parliament has given County Councils power to raise a rate for that purpose, but it is enacted that the County Councils shall not purchase land except at such a price as will recoup them their outlay. That is the principle involved—that no burden is to be laid on the ratepayer for the subvention of particular industries. Now, what does this Bill do? It does not go to the County Councils and say, "You (the County Councils) shall have the power of rating the ratepayers for the purpose of aiding the fishing interests of Scotland." The principle of the English Bill is that, after it has come into play, Parliament is to be invoked. So that Parliament keeps in

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  its own hands the full right and the full authority to see that the ratepayers are not burdened for the sake of one special industry. Now, what are the provisions of this Bill, of which not a word is said in the Preamble? To whom is the power of taxation given under this Bill? It is not given to the County Councils; it is not given to the Town Councils of the great cities, every one of which may be called upon to exact from the ratepayers 1d. in the £1, and to pay it over to the fishermen.
  LORD PLAYFAIR: With the assent of the Central Board.
  THE DUKE OF ARGYLL: That is not very plain in the Bill, but I admit it is very badly drawn. You give it to the District Committees, and then you take special care that they shall not be impartial bodies. The County Councils represent all interests in the counties, and there is a presumption that all classes in a county are agreed upon the policy they are pursuing; but you specially provide here that these District Committees are to consist only one-half of the district representatives and the other half of fishermen; that is to say, you provide that the body which is to be entrusted with this power shall be represented to the extent of one-half by those who have a direct money interest in it. Has Parliament ever before consented to such a principle as that? If my noble Friend had explained that to the House, if he had avowed that the principle of this Bill was to allow Local Bodies to impose a rating in that way, nothing should have induced me to assent to the Second Reading of the Bill. But my noble Friend took care to conceal that.
  LORD PLAYFAIR: I mentioned expressly that one-half of the Committee was to consist of persons interested in the fisheries.
  THE DUKE OF ARGYLL: Yes, you may have mentioned that fact, but not in connection with the rating power given them, and unless you do that no one can understand the significance of the fact. But not being a Town Council or a County Council they are to have that power, they being, half of them, the persons interested in that expenditure. That is an intolerable principle, and if the attention of the House of Commons had been called to it it would never have been passed. Now, when
  1254
  you say that a Bill has passed through the House of Commons, it always looks a little suspicious if the Bill has passed without discussion. We know that in America there is a large class of Bills which they call Lobbying Bills, and I say that this is a Lobbying Bill. It is a Bill of that character; it is a Bill prepared by a few Members in the Lobby. I entirely agree with my noble Friend that this is not a Party measure, but I say it has been concocted by a few Members of Parliament who are interested in fishing constituencies. The list of my noble Friend's Petitions betray that fact. The whole of the West of Scotland, which is largely interested in the fishing industry, knows nothing of this Bill, and has sent up no Petitions in reference to it as far as I know. The Bill passed through the House of Commons with very little, and practically with no discussion at all. Under these circumstances, my Lords, I do not think the Bill comes before us with the authority which a Bill discussed fully in the House of Commons ought naturally to have and will always have in your Lordships' House. There is another point to which I want to direct your Lordships' attention. Those Local Bodies are to represent what is called fishery interests. In a sense, this Bill assumes that we are all in the fishery interest; that we have a public interest in this matter; that the whole nation has an interest in its fisheries. In that great sense I agree we have an interest in them; but I say if we have all an interest in the fisheries, it is the nation that ought to give these subventions, and not the Local Authorities. But how do you define the fishing interests? You actually define them in this Bill as representing the individual men engaged, or the shareholders in a Fishery Company, or anyone else who has a money interest in them. In the loose language of the Bill you include—
  "All persons interested in fisheries, either as owners of fisheries or interests therein, fishermen, fishing boat owners, smack owners, fish curers, fish merchants, or otherwise."
  Was there ever a Bill so loosely drawn as that? Who is to elect these people? They are to be elected by the assessors. Who the assessors are I do not know. Does it mean the County Assessors or the assessors who

  1255
  may be appointed by this new Fishery Board? I do not know; I cannot tell. But the most extraordinary powers are given to these assessors. They are to take the voters of the county and prick off the men that they think represent the fishing interest, or, in the loose and slovenly language of this Bill, "Every man who has a fishing interest." The assessor is to tick off all those persons who have a direct and pecuniary interest in fishing operations, as fish curers, fish merchants, smack owners, or owners of boats, and then those persons so elected are to tax the rest of the community for their own purposes. Now, my noble Friend talked as if the only object of this outlay was the protection of new mussel-beds, but I do not see any limitation of that kind in the wording of the Bill—none whatever. I may say that I have the most hearty sympathy with the line fishermen. I am a line fisherman myself, and there is no amusement I am fonder of than line fishing. I know the extreme difficulty there is in getting bait, and I am anxious to see the mussel bait protected, although I do not agree with my noble Friend that that is the only bait which can be used, because the sand worm, or lob worm, is much more valuable for that purpose.
  LORD PLAYFAIR: I beg my noble Friend's pardon. I mentioned specifically by name a number of baits which could be used.
  THE DUKE OF ARGYLL: I have no quarrel with my noble Friend about that, I think. In any steps which Parliament can take, or can invite Local Bodies to take, for the protection of bait, whether mussels, or lob worms, or anything else, they would have my hearty concurrence; but I object to giving these Local Bodies the power of most unjustly taxing all their neighbours in their own interest. My noble Friend talks of 1d. in the £1. That is a most important limitation, but I very much doubt, when you once establish a principle of that kind, that it will stop at 1d. This Bill when first produced in the Lobby went the length of 3d. in the £1. Is there any limit to the taxation which will flow from this? In some of the county districts in Scotland, many of the small struggling farmers do not bear more than 4d. altogether, and my noble Friend now pro-
  1256
  poses to add 25 per cent, to their local taxation, at the instance of a body one-half of whom are interested directly in the money outlay they are to extract from those ratepayers. And that is a principle which my noble Friend calls the principle of local representation. The proposal seems to me to be quite extravagant, and nothing would induce me to support this Bill if my noble Friend had avowed that those were the principles upon which it went. But they are not the principles on which it rests: so far as the principles of the Bill are avowed, I have no objection to them. Now, my Lords, let me see for a moment what are the other resources for obtaining money to be devoted to these purposes. My noble Friend says that in a few years the mussel-beds will become remunerative. That is a speculation. A mussel-bed may be very easily destroyed. It may be destroyed in a few nights. I can tell your Lordships a circumstance that happend to myself a few years ago. I was driven from my home by a fire, and had to go to another house on the Firth of Clyde where I had not resided for a number of years. In the morning I observed a great number of boats passing loaded down to the gunwale. I could not conceive what it was they were carrying away, and on inquiry I found that they were carrying away a mussel-bed. That was the mussel-bed from which the local fishermen had been supplied with their bait. In a few days hardly one mussel remained. I wrote to my agents asking—
  "Cannot I stop this, as the owner of the estate?"
  but they wrote back to me saying—
  "You are the owner of the foreshore, but you cannot protect the beds."
  and therefore they were destroyed. If you are to establish mussel-beds, you must protect them by a powerful police, and I very much, doubt whether for many years you will have a return from your mussel-beds which will cover the expenses of the operation. I do not say that if you are going to establish them by public authority you ought to pay for them out of the proceeds of the fisheries. Do any of your Lordships know the enormous value of the Scotch fisheries? I think the total amount of fish caught and salted in Scotland

  1257
  during the past year was £1,596,000, or some such figure as that. That is a figure on which a fraction of a penny would raise all you want. You do not raise one penny on the fisheries except to buy bait. You are not taxing the nets; you are not taxing the boats; you do not tax any of the capital which you expect to be subvented out of the labour of others. That is not fair. And for whom are you doing this? Remember you are doing it all for the line fishermen as distinguished from the trawlers. As I have said, I have a great sympathy with the line fishermen; they are hard-worked men. I believe in some districts of Scotland their calling has been diminished. There are all sorts of extravagant ideas as to the cause of the decline of the fisheries. They charge that it is all due to the trawlers, and your Lordships know that there was an agitation on the north-east of Scotland the other day to persuade the Government to prohibit trawling within 30 miles of the coast. But if we do that we should have to allow Dutch and French trawling on ours. And what is the character of the fish caught by the trawlers? It is flat fish; all the valuable fish sent to the London Market, and all the fish for the Glasgow Market are caught by the trawlers. You will now have these Local Bodies entirely representing the line fishermen and not representing the capital and interest which is growing up in the trawling, insisting upon or taking measures for the protection of their own individual industry. If you are going to banish, as Mr. Gladstone said, to Jupiter and Saturn every consideration of economic laws, then I think you ought to "go the whole hog." Why do not you resort to the imposition of a tax upon foreign herrings if you are going to protect a particular industry in this way? I see in the last Report of the Scotch Central Board that one of the causes of the decline of the herring fishery is the enormous increase of foreign herrings. I think it would be difficult to limit the application of the principle, and that if we adopt it we ought to impose a tax on foreign herrings in order to protect our own fishermen. I daresay that would do far more for them than this 1d. in the £1 tax on the farmers. Those, my Lords, are the grounds on which I object
  1258
  to the Bill as it stands, and I assent to its Second Reading solely on the grounds I have stated: First, that it has, as a matter of fact, passed through the House of Commons as a non-contentious Bill; and, secondly, that it has not been recommended to the House by the noble Lord who has charge of it upon any one of the grounds I have stated. I hope the noble Lord will understand that. With regard to the feeling in Scotland upon this Bill, which ho seems to think exists, I think my noble Friend is under a complete delusion. I, for one, never hoard of it, interested as I am personally in the fisheries of the West of Scotland, many of my own people being both line and herring fishermen, and a largo quantity of the fish being caught at my own doors. I never heard of this Bill until I heard it mentioned by Mr. Gladstone at Edinburgh, and flourished as a great triumph of the Session. The Petitions which have been presented by my noble Friend are all from small fishing villages along the coast where the fishermen are all line fishermen. What are the Petitions on the other side? I have heard from the Lord Provost of Aberdeen, the mainstay and head of the fishing interest, that they are all against this Bill. I rather think the Dundee Town Council, one of the largest towns in Scotland, have also presented a Petition against this Bill. All the seaboard places and the small farmers there, who will really be taxed for the benefit of this industry, are against it. The Petitions in its favour come entirely from one class of men and one class of constituencies, and to please them, respectable men as they are, you are asking Parliament blindfold to adopt a principle which, I venture to say, will be found to be an immense source of political corruption.
  LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH: My Lords, I waited for a moment thinking that, perhaps, some other Member of the Government might like to support the Bill which one Member of their body has laid upon the Table of the House; but before the noble Lord who is in charge of it replies, if he thinks fit to do so, I should like to say a few words about it. I came here, I will say frankly, with the intention of supporting the appeal of the noble Duke that we should not divide the House upon the Second Reading of this Bill, and I did so upon

  1259
  grounds which he has put before your Lordships much more ably than I can do, and therefore I shall say no more than confess that I quite agree with the noble Lord who moved the Second Reading of the Bill, that this is not a Party question; and though I do not think the Resolution which he quoted goes very far in support of the case—I am quite willing to let him get what he can out of it—there was certainly a proposal to condemn the Bill, and a counter-proposal to leave it to the wisdom of Parliament. Very wisely, in my opinion, the Conservative Associations resolved to leave it to the wisdom of Parliament, including the wisdom of this House. But that was the full extent of the support given to the Bill upon this particular occasion. Against that I have to put the Petitions of the Town Councils—of such places as Aberdeen, Montrose, and Dundee. They, I think, are not usually regarded as hotbeds of Toryism in Scotland, but I think they have unanimously petitioned against the Bill. In the case of Aberdeen a Municipal election has taken place since the resolution to petition against the Bill was carried, and I do not think one single question was put to the candidates upon that occasion. If I were to describe this Bill I should say it was a Bill to allow the Secretary for Scotland to do whatever he liked with the rates of the seaboard counties of Scotland. He is to divide those counties into districts, and if there are to be eight districts I should like to ask why are not we to have them set out in a Schedule? Unlike the English Act, there is to be no appeal to either House of Parliament. The Secretary for Scotland is to consider objections, but he is to be absolutely unfettered as to what he will do with those objections. He is to settle in what proportions the different interests are to be represented. One-half of the Committee is to be interested in the fisheries and the other half is to represent the County Councils and so on; but it is left absolutely to the Secretary for Scotland to say in what proportion the half not representing the fishing interest is to be divided between Town and County Councils. There is to be absolutely, as I have said, no appeal to Parliament. What is a seaboard county? Why are we not to have the cities in? and what of those counties which are to be regarded as seaboard
  1260
  counties? The noble Lord has said that the Secretary for Scotland has declared that Perth, Peebles, Ross-shire, and some others are the only counties in Scotland which are not seaboard. What about the Counties of Lanark or Renfrew, and my own County of Clackmannan, which, though not so large as others, has strongly objected through its County Council to be retained under the provisions of this Bill? Then, my Lords, when those Fishery Committees are constituted they are to have very extensive powers. There is one small point, but it is one to which I should like to call the attention of the noble Lord who has charge of the Bill. What is to be done with these boroughs which are not seaboard boroughs, but which are in counties that are seaboard and do not send representatives to those County Councils? They will not have a representation through the County Councils, and yet, as I road the Bill, they will be taxed at the sweet will of the Committee. That seems to me to be an extremely unsatisfactory position for those large populous places to be in, and there are a considerable number of them. I am sure such an injustice cannot have been intended, but owing to the way in which this Bill was Lurried through the other House of Parliament no remark was made upon that point. Now, my Lords, the supreme power of expenditure is put in the hands of those Fishery Committees. My noble Friend, Lord Playfair, as I understand him—and he rose to correct the noble Duke upon the point—seemed to imply that the Fishery Committees had no power to rate except with the consent of the Fishery Board. I do not find that in the Act. Sub-section 3 of Clause 6, which gives the power to rate, gives that power to the extent of 1d. absolutely to the Fishery Committee. There is no control whatever upon the amount of the rate. There is a certain amount of control as to the mussel-beds, as I understand, on which the rate may be expended. But, my Lords, there is really no parallel between this Bill and the English Bill which provides for the fishery districts in England, because the fishery districts in England are under the control of the County and Borough Councils with regard to the salaries of the officers; but in this case there is to be no control at all. Another

  1261
  parallel which the noble Lord sought to bring in was with the Small Holdings Act, and the Piers Act for the Western Highlands. That parallel will not hold water at all, because, in both those cases, the whole expenditure of the money is in the hands of the County Councils as a whole; and, therefore, in those cases, although I am not concerned to defend the actual expenditure of the money, taxation and representation certainly go together. But, in this case, they are divorced from each other, because, as the noble Lord has pointed out, at least one-half the persons raising the rate will be interested in expending it. I am inclined to object to this power of assessment altogether. It seems to me unjust and impolitic, under the circumstances which exist in this Bill, to rate one class of the community for the benefit of another; and as to the limit of 1d. in the £1, I think the prophesies made about the Education Kate and the Free Libraries Rate will show what is the value of the forecast that this rate will never increase beyond Id. It seems to me impolitic in the extreme to allow these Fishery Committees really to go into business as providers and sellers of bait to the fishermen. I do not object to protection at all. I think that probably here there is a good case for protection, but it does seem to me extremely impolitic to pledge the rates of the rural districts for the sake of putting it in the power of the Fishery Committees to acquire the monopoly of the provision of bait. I do not say that it is likely the Committees will use their powers arbitrarily, and fix the price that they will charge for bait too high. The larger interest lies in the other direction; that is to say, they will use their powers to sell bait to the fishermen below cost price, and will recoup themselves out of the rates. I see no check whatever against their doing that within the four corners of the Bill. The noble Lord, I understand, says that the administrative check is to be found in the Fishery Board which is constituted in Edinburgh. But how? If that Fishery Board was a nominated Board, or any considerable part of it, they might be a check; but the Fishery Board, as altered by this Bill, is to consist of 11 members, one of whom is to be the Chairman, another a scientific gentleman who knows about
  1262
  fishes, and the third, the Sheriff, who is to give legal advice to the Board; the remaining eight are to be persons appointed by the fishery districts, whose proceedings they are expected to control. I never, in any Parliamentary proposal which I have seen, saw a more conspicuous illustration of the adage about setting the cat to watch the Queen. Lastly, the Fishery Committees elected will not dare to control the expenditure. If they do they will be put out of office, and others who will not dare to control the expenditure will be promptly placed in power. Therefore, it seems to me that check is absolutely and entirely illusory. I object also very much to the extremely drastic powers of framing bye-laws which are proposed to be given to the Board in Edinburgh. There is no appeal given even to the Secretary for Scotland, no appeal to Parliament, and those bye-laws may be adopted entirely at the discretion of the Fishery Board. They may be adopted by the Local Fishery Committee without even a notice to the people concerned. There is to be a certain procedure before the bye-laws are framed applicable to the whole of Scotland, but when once framed the Local Committees may adopt them without giving the slightest indication of their intention to do so to any one concerned. My Lords, I do not want to set one interest in the country against another. My noble Friend, Lord Playfair, makes much of the Petitions he has presented from the fishing communities on the east and north-east coasts of Scotland. I will not go the length of describing them as insignificant fishing villages. I think the expression used by the noble Marquess was rather too strong; but as he comes from the County of Aberdeen I will leave my noble Friend and the Aberdonians to settle that when he goes home. But I believe that the Petitions presented come from communities greatly interested in the fisheries, perhaps more interested in the fisheries than almost the whole of the rest of Scotland put together; still, it is as fishermen only that they have presented Petitions for the rates of other members of the community to be expended for their benefit. Therefore, I think I am entitled, to some extent, to discount the value of their

  1263
  Petitions under those circumstances. I have only one more remark to make, and it is this: I hope when we assent to the Second Reading of the Bill the noble Lord opposite will give us a substantial time to consider the Amendments to be put down. It is absolutely necessary to consult the Town Councils and County Councils and their Committees upon some of the points involved. The noble Lord has told us himself that the Government are not going to adhere to one of the most important provisions of the Bill. I think I gathered from him that the provisions for the making up of the Roll are to be altered in some respect or other.
  LORD PLAYFAIR: I did not say altered, but that it was a subject which would cause, we thought, some difference of opinion; that therefore we should like to have the views of Members of the House upon them, and would give those views consideration.
  LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH: That, of course, is conciliatory, and a very reasonable attitude to take up. But I cannot understand the provisions as they are now. I cannot understand what the constituency is to be. I know that the assessor is to put a special mark on the Roll against the names of those whom he regards as entitled to vote with reference to fishery interests, and I know that those people so marked are eligible to be returned to the Committee; I know also that the voter is to have one vote for each person to be elected, but that he cannot give more than one vote to any one candidate; but I do not gather from the Bill whether the fishery district is to be divided into constituencies for the purpose of election, or whether all the voters in the fishery district are to vote for one set of candidates, and, if so, how the vote is to be taken. There is no guidance given to me. There is a provision in the Bill to which of itself I should be inclined to object, inasmuch as it is not couched in the English language as to the election of these fishery members that they—
  "Shall be mutatis mutandis carried out in the same way as an election to a County Council."
  My Lords, it does not seem to me that there is any parallel at all between the two cases, and I cannot understand how the provisions of the Local Government
  1264
  of Scotland Act are to be fitted in so as to make them suitable to the clauses of this Bill. It seems to me that is another of the things which is left wholly to the discretion of the Secretary for Scotland, and I am bound to say I think it much too wide a power to leave to any Member of the Government when the issues involved are so important. I will say no more about the Bill at the present time, but I hope we shall be allowed at least 10 days or a fortnight before the Committee stage of the Bill, and that the Government will put upon the Paper in this House, some days before we are asked to discuss them, what proposals they are going to make for amending the Bill. I shall, under those circumstances, renew the appeal to the noble Lord opposite not to divide the House on the Second Reading of the Bill.
  LORD PLAYFAIR: My Lords, I do not think I should at this late hour occupy much more of your attention. Some remarks which have been made upon different sections of the Bill struck me as being upon matters which I should much like to discuss with the Secretary for Scotland who is responsible for this Bill. I think the proposal is very reasonable, that time should be given to noble Lords to put down the Amendments they propose and to enable the Government to consider those Amendments and see what is the nature of them. If, therefore, it is agreeable to the House, I would suggest that we should not take the Bill in Committee until Friday next.
  THE MARQUESS OF HUNTLY: I would suggest that it would be very inconvenient to noble Lords from Scotland to fix that day.
  THE EARL OF KIMBERLEY: We fixed that day for the convenience of noble Lords from Scotland, as we were told it would be most convenient.
  THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN: My Lords, after the expression of opinion which your Lordships have heard, I shall not ask the House to divide on the Motion.
  Amendment (by leave of the House) withdrawn.
  Original Motion agreed to.
  Bill read 2a accordingly, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House on Friday the 1st of December next.

MARRIED WOMEN'S PROPERTY ACT (1882) AMENDMENT BILL.
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed.

ADJOURNMENT.
THE EARL OF KIMBERLEY THE EARL OF KIMBERLEY moved, as there was no Business for to-morrow or for Thursday before their Lordships, that the House do adjourn to Friday next.
Motion agreed to.
House adjourned at twenty-five minutes past Six o'clock, till To-morrow, half-past Ten o'clock.