§ THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (Lord TWEEDMOUTH),, in moving that this Bill be read a second time, said, that ever since he first sat in the House of Commons the subject was one to which he had given considerable attention; and he should be afraid to say how many Committees and Commissions to deal with it he had sat upon during that time. Either as a private Member or as Chairman he had been placed upon them by both Parties; and he had never dealt with the subject in any way from a Party point of view. If any evidence were wanted of the fact that the subject had been dealt with in freedom from Party bias it might be found in the fact that Bills on this subject, very similar to this Bill, brought forward by himself in 1890 and 1891, had on the backs of them the names of such representative Members from Scotland, and men of such diverse views as Mr. Duff, Colonel Malcolm of Poltalloch, Mr. Finlay, and Mr. Angus Sutherland, the present Chairman of the Scotch Fisheries Board. This Bill was not urged upon their Lordships from any Party point of view; but it was a sincere and honest attempt to deal with a question of great importance. A somewhat similar Bill was before their Lordships last year, when, owing to their action, it was dropped. The first objection taken to it in this House was, that it compelled the owners of mussel beds to produce their title; and the second, that Scotland was compulsorily divided into districts and certain rating provisions made, which were objectionable On both these points an endeavour had been made to meet the views of their Lordships. The mussel clauses had been inserted in this Bill in exactly the same form as they left this House last year after 242 Amendment by this House. With regard to the division of the country into districts, it was urged last year that Scotland had received different treatment Tom England, and that if provisions that had been and were in force in England were adopted with regard to Scotland there would be less objection to the proposals of the Bill. This Bill embodied the exact provisions as to District Fishery Committees which were now in force in England. In 1888 a Conservative Government passed a Bill for instituting District Committees in England; and in this Bill the provisions of the English Act were applied mutatis mutandis to Scotland. The fishing industry was a more important one to Scotland than it was ever to England. Scotland was a poorer country with a small population, and at the same time with a very long coast-line. The extent of the coast-line of Scotland was about 2,500 miles, and that of England about 2,000 miles. The number of fishermen in each country was very nearly equal—roughly about 45,000 men and boys. To these must be added 1,600 fish-curers in Scotland, employing some 50,000 persons; then there were boat builders, net-makers, coopers, and so forth, with their wives, families, and dependents. It would be no exaggeration to say that one-eighth of the population of the country were engaged in the fishing trade in one way or the other. As to the amount of fish caught there was pretty nearly equality between the two countries. But Scotland with a land area only about one—half that of England and Wales and a population of less than one-seventh must look upon her fisheries differently from England and Wales. In the main all parties were agreed upon four points. One was, that there should be a reconstitution of the Scottish Fisheries Board, and that something of a representative character should be given to it. The second was, that there should be district fisheries Committees. The third was that some further powers should be given to the Fisheries Board to regulate the various forms of fishing that are practised around the coast. The fourth was that some Legislative facilities should be given for improving and developing the mussel fisheries, which are so important for furnishing bait. On these four points 243 there was practical agreement; and surely they would be able to find the means of giving effect to the universal wishes of all concerned. The Fishery Board now consisted of nine members, all appointed, of whom three were sheriffs, which was a large representation of the legal element. The present Bill proposed to retain this number, nine, but that three members should be appointed triennially by the Government of the day—namely, the Chairman, one Sheriff, and one fishery export; and the remaining six to be nominated by the District Committees. In the formation of the District Committees, it was proposed to follow the lines of the English Bill, and to allow those concerned to make application to the Secretary for Scotland to form themselves into districts. The Committees would be Committees of the County Councils, just as the English District Committees were; and if more than one county were included in one District of such Councils it would be a Joint Committee. The proposal was, that one—half the members of these District Committees should be appointed by the County Councils and Borough Councils within the district, that the other half should for the first three years be appointed by the Secretary for Scotland in the same way as in England members were appointed by the President of the Board of Trade, and that after 1898 they should be elected by members of the fishery interest triennially, at the same time as the County Councils. It had been suggested that these District Committees would be great expenders of money; but seven years' experience of the English Committees showed that they had been exceedingly economical bodies, and that their ratal demands had amounted to mere fractions of a penny in the pound. The twelve English districts were:—Northumberland, the North-eastern, the Eastern, Kent and Essex, Sussex, the Southern, Devon, Cornwall, Glamorgan, Milford Haven, the Western, and Lancashire. Of these twelve, only six had been involved in any considerable expenditure; and their last year's expenditure was as follows:—Northumberland, £407, equal to a rate of .051d.; North-eastern, £514, equal to a rate of .013d.; Kent and Essex, £133, equal to a rate of .004d.; Devon, £138, equal to .007d.; Glamorgan 244 £227, equal to a rate of .020d.; Lancashire, £2,779, equal to a rate of .026d. He would give an instance or two to show what bodies were included in these districts. In the case of Northumberland, the county alone, with the various cities within it, including Newcastle; in the North-Eastern District, Durham, the North and East Hidings of Yorkshire, parts of Lindsey in Lincolnshire, and the boroughs of South Shields, Sunderland, Middlesbrough, Hull, Scarborough, and Grimsby; in Kent and Essex—part of Kent and the whole of Essex; in the Devon Division—Devon, part of Cornwall, and the boroughs of Devonport, Plymouth, and Exeter; in the Lancashire District—the counties of Cheshire, Lancashire, and Cumberland, with the boroughs of Barrow, Birkenhead, Blackburn, Bolton, Bootle, Burnley, Bury, Liverpool, Manchester, Oldham, Preston, Rochdale, St. Helen's, Salford, Stockport, Southport, and Wigan. It would be seen that these districts were large districts, that they represented all sorts of interests, and he maintained that the constitution of similar districts in Scotland would be of the greatest possible use to the Scottish fisheries. The next point dealt with in the Bill was the question of attempting to regulate, or to give the Fishery Board power to regulate, the various sorts of fisheries carried on off the Scottish coast. It was proposed to give the Scottish Board discretion with regard to prohibiting what was called seine trawling for herring. He knew there had been considerable controversy on this question, and that it was maintained, on the one hand, that there was no necessity for regulation, and, on the other hand, that it was greatly required. It was contended that this seine trawling for herrings in shallow water did considerable damage, that it broke up the shoals of herring, that it was a wasteful method of fishing, and caused at certain seasons the destruction of a great number of immature fish. The seine fishermen themselves were inclined to admit this, and would be quite willing to see a certain restriction put upon them during the earlier months of the season. While it was not proposed in the Bill to put any absolute restriction on this form of fishing, it was proposed to give the Board the power to regulate it, and to 245 prohibit in such places as they might think necessary. Then it was proposed to give the Board power to apply the same restrictions to that portion of the sea between Rattray Point and the Fame Islands, as they were empowered to enforce within a line drawn from Rattray Point to Duncansby Head. In this respect the Bill followed absolutely the Bill of 1889, which was brought in by Colonel Malcolm, and supported by the Government of the day. It seemed to him only fair that teh same restrictions should apply to the waters south of Rattray Head as those which applied to the north. He did not rest his case in favour of this clauses, or any of the old bogies raised against trawling. He did not pretend that trawling destroyed the spawn of food fish, or that the number of immature fish killed was sufficient to materially reduce, the number of fish in the sea, or that the productiveness of the sea had been materially affected by trawling operations. He rested his case on a different point—namely, the number of fishermen, men and boys, in Scotland was about 45,000, and of them, the number to be found on board trawlers was, he thought, 706; the remainder of the Scottish fishermen were scattered along the coast in little colonies at no great distance from one another. On the East Coast especially, fishing villages would be found about every 10 or 12 miles, with little harbours of their own. These men owned their own boats, and, for the most part, they carried on their fishing operations from their own homes, and from their own little harbours. It was true that, at certain seasons, some of them who had larger boats made expeditions further afield, but most of their fishing was conducted from their own harbours. Their fishing-grounds must, therefore, be within a moderate distance of their homes. That was not the case with the trawlers. The steam trawler was in one place to-day and in another to-morrow, and whatever might be said about the effect of trawling on fish, there was no doubt that a trawler working a particular ground could practically clear the fish out of it altogether. He did not say that there was a permanent destruction of fish, but some months would elapse before the ground was again peopled with fish. In their way, the men who lived in the villages 246 along the coast might be practically deprived of the possibility of getting fish for two or three months on their usual fishing-grounds. That, he thought, was a very hard state of things. There could be no question of hardship with the trawler. He had the whole of the North Sea open to him, and there could be no hardship in providing that he should leave the waters close to the coast to the operations of the line and drift-net fishermen. But there was another question involved. These line fishermen had an enormous length of line. The boats on the South of Scotland would have eight or nine miles of lines on board, carrying 13,000 hooks, which had to be baited and shot every day. Suppose a fleet of these boats shot their lines across the tide, as was their practice. A trawler fished in an exactly opposite way. He went with the tide, going about a mile faster than the tide. Therefore, if he came on to ground occupied by the line fishermen, he must necessarily go right through the lines, and cause infinite damage; and, in a similiar manner, the same argument applied to the drift nets. There would be a mile to two miles of nets to each boat. The boats rode close by them and it would be much less difficult for a trawler to see what he was doing; but it was almost impossible for the trawler to avoid damage. Again, great damage was done by trawlers to crab and lobster pots in inshore waters. He believed that one of the great necessities for fishery legislation was to secure a certain separation between the different classes of fishermen, to secure that certain grounds should be occupied by one class, and other grounds by another class, and anything that tended towards that purpose was, he believed, sound policy. This clause was entirely in accordance, with former precedents. First, the Fishery Board were given power to prohibit trawling within the three-mile limit. They took the view that they were not bound to do this, but had a discretionary power. Then an Act was passed, prohibiting it entirely, and the power of prohibition was extended to the waters within a line drawn from Rattray Point to Duncansby Head. The fishing-ground it was proposed to give the Board power over under this Bill was not so extensive as that already included 247 in the Bill of 1889, and he hoped their Lordships would look favourably on the proposal. One word with regard to the penalties proposed in this Clause 11. He must apologise to the House with regard to Sub-section 2 of that clause. It was introduced from the Bill of 1889, the Amending Act of 1890 having been forgotten. That Act changed the penalty altogether, and made the maximum £100 instead of £20, and when this Bill got into Committee, he should propose to amend the clause relating to the infliction of penalties for trawling, and take the clause of the Act of 1890 as the model on which to rest this clause. A new penalty was proposed in Clause 12 —namely, to allow the Scotch Courts, if they thought fit, to remove any boat from the Register of Fishing Boats. In England it was possible to take away the certificate of the trawler. In Scotland there was no such thing as a certificate required; so the proposal was that the boat should be removed from the Register, the object being to get at the owners of the boat rather than the master, who was, after all, only the servant of the owners. At present, on failure by him to pay a fine, he would be sent to prison, and the boat could at once go off again to prohibited grounds with another master. Then the fourth point was a question of the regulation of mussel fisheries. It was impossible to exaggerate the importance of mussels as bait. The fishermen used mussels for bait, and it was computed that it was necessary to have a ton of mussels in bulk in order to catch a similar amount of fish. At present mussels were being imported from Ireland, Holland, and from the Lincolnshire fens. It was clear that the wants of Scotch fishermen ought to be met by supplies from their own mussel-beds. That much could be done in the direction of cultivating mussels was proved by the very successful results at Montrose. It was proposed, therefore, to give the Fishery Board and the District Committees power to acquire mussel-scalps in different parts of Scotland, and to work them for the benefit of the industry. He regretted the disappearance from the Bill of the clause requiring reputed owners of mussel-scalps to produce their titles. That clause, however, was not essential 248 to the Bill, and it had been determined to reintroduce only essential provisions. He trusted that the concession made by the omission of this clause would facilitate the progress of the Bill. He submitted the measure to the House as a sincere and honest effort to deal with a most important question affecting a class of men whose work was performed under exceptionally hard and dangerous conditions. He begged to move the Second Reading of the Bill.
THE MARQUESS OF HUNTLY, who rose to move that the Bill be read a second time that day six months, said that since he had given notice of his Amendment he had received ample proofs that he was justified in the course which he proposed to take. Every Public Body, every County Council, every Town Council in Scotland that had considered this measure had resolved unanimously to petition against it. He had himself presented that day petitions from the Town Council of Aberdeen, from the Harbour Commissioners, and from the citizens of Aberdeen in public meeting assembled against this measure. In order to prove that this was not an innocent measure, as the Lord Privy Seal represented, he would read a letter written by a gentleman well known as having taken very great interest in the Bill before their Lordships' House in 1893, to the public meeting held in Aberdeen, which, as they knew, was the great centre of the fishing trade in Scotland. Treasurer Bisset, the gentleman to whom he referred, wrote as follows—
I do say that it is the duty of everyone who wishes to see right prevail to oppose any further restriction until it has been proved that the restrictions already in force have benefited those in whose interests they were enacted. That the line fishermen have not benefited is clear to everybody, and to none more so than to the fishermen themselves. I have been much amused to observe how much the line fishermen regard such proposals as were contained in the last Fisheries Bill, and as appear again in the two now before Parliament. Not one fisherman in a hundred believes that any legislation that can be passed will assist them, and the only thing that will be attained will be injury to the trawl fishermen and the fish-using public. If there is one thing more than another that people who regard the interests of their country as being above that of mere party advantage should unite in doing, it is to bring home to both parties in the State that log-rolling and vote-catching by speculating with the interests of the country is not to be tolerated. If that were done, those engaged in carrying on trade 249 and commerce would be saved very much annoyance as well as a very large amount of valuable time and energy.Treasurer Bisset, he might observe, was an ardent supporter of the party to which the Lord Privy Seal belonged. The noble Lord had brought forward this measure as a most innocent measure, and stated that it followed absolutely the provisions of the English Act. He would prove, however, that this Bill was dissimilar to the English measure in a most important point. There was no provision in the English measure for the election of District Fishery Committees. In England these Committees were nominated by the Board of Trade, and consequently there was no machinery for the rating of whole districts for election purposes.
§ LORD TWEEDMOUTHobserved that the rating clauses in the two measures were identical.
THE MARQUESS OF HUNTLYasserted, that the English measure did not provide for the payment of election expenses, because in England the Committees were not elected. In England the Board of Trade nominated those who, in the opinion of the Department, were suitable representatives of the fishing interests. Consequently in England there was no election expenditure. In another respect this Bill differed from the English measure. In the latter there was a clause requiring that before making any Order, creating a fishery district, the Board of Trade should cause a draft of such Order to be locally published; and, if objections were raised to it, should cause such local inquiry to be held as might be desired. There was no such provision, in this Bill, and it was proposed to put Scotch localities absolutely at the mercy of the Secretary for Scotland. They did not approve his being given the power to carve out districts as he liked, and to sanction the formation of District Committees on the application of 20 ratepayers without local inquiry. These Committees, it should be borne in mind, were to have power to impose an unlimited rate. The evidence given before the Royal Commission of 1885 went to show that if anything was to be done in the direction of improving the fishing on the coasts of Scotland it must be by some international agreement. There was a most exhaustive inquiry by the Trawling 250 Commission of 1885, and in their Report there was not a hint in favour of District Committees. The first hint they got of them was in the Report of the Committee presided over by the noble Lord when a Member of the House of Commons, and they were recommended on evidence which, in his opinion, was not conclusive. The Fishery Board reported that it was desirable there should be an international agreement for the regulation of fishing in the North Sea, and recommended that the proper steps should be taken with that object. The question had become a burning one in the last three weeks. In answer to a question as to whether there was any objection to foreign trawlers landing fish at Scottish ports, the noble Lord said he supposed the question was a hypothetical one. It was nothing of the sort. He received a letter as late as last Saturday night in which it was stated that three German trawlers had recently arrived in Aberdeen Harbour which had been fishing within our waters. Now what did the Bill propose? At the present moment the Moray Firth was closed to our own fishermen, while it was open to those of foreign nations. And now the Lord Privy Seal proposed to take a stretch of coast from Rattray Head to the Farne Islands in Northumberland, and to exclude from the waters of the North Sea within that line, without international agreement, all home trawlers; and at the same time to leave these same waters open to Frenchmen, Dutchmen, Germans, and Norwegians. He knew his countrymen as well as most men, and he was positive, from the feelings he had heard expressed, that the Bill in its present shape would not be allowed to go much farther. He might not, perhaps, press his Motion against the Second Reading to a Division, but he should oppose the Bill at subsequent stages, and he was convinced that Scotchmen, either in this place or another place, would not allow the measure to become law.
THE MARQUESS OF LOTHIANtook notice of the statement of the noble Marquess about waters which were closed by by-laws against British trawlers being open to foreign vessels. That was a statement which ought not to pass without some comment, because the question it opened had reference not only to Scotland but to the policy of 251 the country all over the world. He did not wish to say whether the doctrine propounded by the noble Marquess was right or wrong, but in his view it would be disastrous if it were stated as a matter of fact, without comment, that we had no possible remedy against foreign vessels fishing in waters which were prohibited to our own fishermen.
THE MARQUESS OF LOTHIANwas perfectly aware they were fishing there, but he did not wish to let the statement pass that we had no powers against them whatever. With regard to the Bill itself, in many ways he thought it a good one; especially the second part, dealing with mussel beds and clams. But with regard to the earlier part he was not at one with the noble Lord. The main principles of the Bill were three. The first was, that there should be a new constitution of the Fishery Board, and on this point he rather thought that in the interests of the Scottish fisheries it was desirable that the permanent members—that was, the members appointed by the Crown— should be in a stronger position relatively to the elected members. The second principle of the Bill was that Scotland should be divided into districts or groups of districts. These were to be settled entirely by the Secretary for Scotland.
§ LORD TWEEDMOUTHAt the suggestion of the districts themselves in the first instance.
THE MARQUESS OF LOTHIANdid not think this proposal desirable. He should very much prefer that the fishery districts should be laid down at once and authoritatively by the Bill. The Secretary for Scotland could not force any portion of Scotland to become a fishery district against their will; and the consequence was there might be gaps which would be very undesirable. The third principle related to the question of finance. In the Bill which ho introduced in 1892, and which he believed would have passed but for the General Election, the Treasury had agreed, for certain purposes, to advance public moneys for the, advantage of the fishery districts of Scotland, and he should adhere very strongly to the principle 252 there admitted by their Lordships' House. It was all very well to say that this Bill followed the similar Bill for England. But England was a much richer country. With the great wealth of the English fishery districts a rate became very small. The same relative expenditure in Scotland might mean a very large rate. He was sure it might, and there was nothing whatever in the Bill to limit the amount of the rate. It might go up to 20s. in the £. He thought it was perfectly impossible that the necessary expenditure could be carried out from rates levied in the districts. There was also the disadvantage in the proposal of the noble Lord which the Bill would not touch, that the rate in one place might be much larger than in another. Take the county of Sutherlandshire. If Scotland was divided into districts it would involve three separate groups of districts. On the East Coast there might be a small expenditure, but Sutherlandshire would be rated for that expenditure. If there was another group for the North Coast that would include the Orkneys and Shetland, for which Sutherlandshire would be rated; and then, if there was another district for the West Coast——
§ LORD TWEEDMOUTHIt is quite impossible for one county to be included in more than one district.
THE MARQUESS OF LOTHIANI beg the noble Lord's pardon. That depends entirely upon the Secretary for Scotland.
§ LORD TWEEDMOUTHobserved that in England there were different parts of counties in different districts, but only that portion of the county which was in the particular district would be rated for that particular purpose, and a very small portion of the rate would fall upon it. The arrangement in the English case was that the amount of the rate thrown upon any particular district or borough was apportioned to the amount of representation that particular district or borough had on the District Committee.
THE MARQUESS OF LOTHIANIn the noble Lord's Bill there is nothing of that kind. It makes the whole county responsible.
§ LORD TWEEDMOUTHNo, no.
THE MARQUESS OF LOTHIANthought his contention would be found to be correct. But apart from that, there 253 were other expenses which could not be met by any rating clause in the poor districts of Scotland. There was the question of policeing and also the question of carrying out the sea provisions of the Bill, with regard to which the noble Lord was aware of the difficulties that arose. The Admiralty were supposed to be responsible for carrying out the law, but it had proved practically impossible for them to do the work. There were only two ways of doing it. One was that the Admiralty should have the command of an adequate number of ships and men to enable them to see that the law was carried out; and the other was that a sufficient sum of public money should be given to the Fishery Board in Scotland to enable them to provide ships and men for the same purpose. As a matter of fact, the Fishery Board, having no means of their own, had been able to do little or nothing, and the Admiralty had also felt themselves unable to afford the necessary number of ships and men. Nothing could be more disastrous than that the law should be in existence, passed by the authority of both Houses of Parliament and the Queen, and that that law should then be constantly broken with impunity. It was for the Treasury to provide a sufficient amount of money, so that an end might be put to such a state of things, and steps taken to see that the law was obeyed. He did not think that such a sum could be, or ought to be, raised from the rates, and the only efficient way of obtaining it was by a contribution from the public funds. He was very glad to hear that the, noble Marquess did not intend to press his Motion to a Division, because nothing could be more undesirable to the interests concerned than that the present state of matters should be allowed to continue, and whatever was decided by their Lordships ought to become law this Session. Considering the differences of opinion upon many portions of the Bill, and the difficult and intricate nature of the subject, he hoped the noble Lord in charge of the Bill would consent to have it referred to a Select Committee.
THE EARL, OF CAMPERDOWNconcurred, generally, with the several criticisms made on the Bill, and he also joined in the appeal to his noble Friend not to press his Motion to a Division. The course he would respectfully suggest 254 to the House was, that this Bill should be read a second time, and then referred to a Select Committee—a course which he should also ask their Lordships to adopt in reference to a measure which he should move at a later stage. With regard to the Bill now before them, the noble Lord said it was in exact correspondence with the English Act of 1888. In that he did not think the noble Lord was correct; but the question was, not whether this Bill was in harmony with the Act which had been passed for another part of the kingdom, but how the matter should be treated in the real interests of Scotland. He admitted there was a necessity for the Bill, but the point on which it seemed to him most urgently required for Scotland was the question of the sea police, which the noble Lord had entirely omitted to refer to. Ho believed the great difficulty at the present time was, how to enforce the due observance of the law which now existed. All the authorities who had considered the matter had agreed that the present system of sea police in Scotland was wholly inefficient, and ought to be improved. With that he thoroughly concurred. On the question of District Committees, also, he took very much the same view as the noble Lord. He believed himself that something in the nature of District Committees must be adopted—at all events to a large proportion of Scotland; and, he also agreed generally with the noble Lord, that there must be a reconstitution of the Fishery Board. Coming to the Fishery Districts, that was a matter on which the noble Lord seemed hardly to understand his own Bill, because he told them that the extent of the district would depend partly upon the district itself. But the Bill contained this provision—
On the application of a County Council, or of Town Council, the Secretary may create a Sea Fisheries District, define the limits of the district and the area chargeable,So far as he could see, that was the whole enactment which dealt with the matter of the district. But how did the, extent of the district in any way depend upon the district itself or upon, the applicants? Further than that, the application for a district would not depend upon the application of the County Council or the Town Council alone, but any 20 ratepayers residing in any part of the proposed district might apply to 255 the Secretary; and unless the County Council or Town Council which was appealed against, but which did not apply to him, could show to his satisfaction that such Order should not he made, he was to make the Order. The effect of that was, that any 20 ratepayers could apply to the Secretary to form a district, it rested with the Town and County Councils to show that a district was not required, and unless they could prove that, the Secretary was to create a district. Surely, the onus of showing there ought to be a district should be put upon the applicants, and not upon the authorities who resided within the district which was proposed to be made. He contended, therefore, that in the first place all the power was vested in the hands of the Secretary. Last year the Secretary laid before their Lordships a plan of districts which proved to be wholly unacceptable, and was rejected with universal consent. What was to hinder him under this clause putting forward exactly the same plan? He could see nothing to prevent it. With regard to the election of the Fishery District Committee, one half the members were to be delegates of Town and County Councils, and the, other half were to be fishery members elected by the fishery electors, the noble Lord further proposing that all the expenses of the Act should fall upon the local rates. Did the noble Lord for one moment suppose that the local ratepayers would submit to be taxed by a committee, half of which was to consist of fishery electors, some of whom might not be ratepayers at all? Of course, they would immediately object, and the very constitution of the Committee so proposed made it an absolute impossibility, because it stood to reason, that if a district was to be taxed every ratepayer would properly insist upon having a vote in regard to his own taxability. The noble Lord also said that in regard to the elections the Bill was on all fours with the English Act. But it was nothing of the kind. Half of the district Committees in England were nominated by the Board of Trade, and there was no election at all. But the most important question was the question of the expense of putting the Bill into operation. The noble Lord said not one word in reference to the rate, 256 nor did he mention the purposes for which the rate was to be proposed. As he read the Bill, the whole of the costs of all sorts and descriptions which might be incurred under the Bill were to fall on the local rates of the district. There was no limit whatever to the local rate that might be imposed. It was quite clear the noble Lord intended that the district should be rated for the money required for the purchase of mussel-beds. But supposing police were required, did the noble Lord mean that the rates of the district should provide the necessary vessels. As he had said before, the want of an efficient police service was really the difficulty of the Scotch fishing question; and, if they were to understand that the vessels were to be provided out of the local rates, he wondered where in the districts in the North and West of Scotland the noble Lord would find sufficient property to rate for procuring vessels which were undoubtedly required for the maintenance of the law. No Commission or Committee had ever suggested that those matters should be done out of the local rates. The Commission of 1885 made no such suggestion; the Committee of the noble Lord himself in 1893 made no such suggestion; and, as he understood, the first time it was proposed to lay the whole of the expenses which might be incurred under the Fisheries Act on the districts was by the Government Bill of last year. The noble Lord proposed to give the District Committees power to make bye-laws in certain cases. He thought it was better to restrict the power to make bye-laws to the Central Fishery Board. But that was a matter of detail for discussion at a later period. He did not wish to take exception to the Second Reading, but he hoped the noble Lord would consent to refer the Bill to a Select Committee.
§ LORD TWEEDMOUTHsaid, he thought the best answer to the criticisms made on the Bill was that the provisions in regard to the District Committees had been in force in England for seven years, and had worked most admirably. He admitted that there was one considerable difference, namely, that after 1898 the members of the Fishery District Committees were elected, instead of being appointed by the Secretary of Scotland, as they were appointed in England by the Board of Trade. The orders made 257 by the Board of Trade for the constitution of fishery districts in England depended to a large extent on the representations which had been made by the various local authorities in those districts. Any representations from the various local authorities in Scotland in regard to the fishery districts that might be constituted would, of course, be considered by the Secretary for Scotland, and, therefore, when noble Lords hinted at difficulties about the constitution of districts they were but trying to conjure up difficulties that were not to be found within the four corners of the Bill. With regard to the question of finance, noble Lords had forgotten that Scotland was in a different position from England, because it had a Fishery Board which was supplied with funds from Imperial sources. He agreed with much that had been said as to the necessity of greater funds being placed at the disposal of the Fishery Board for police, but the amount of the charge that would be thrown on the District Committees would be very much diminished by the fact that already a considerable charge, borne by the Fishery Board, came out of Imperial funds. It seemed to him an extraordinary proposal that the whole of the expenses of District Committees, elected locally to deal with purely local matters with regard to fisheries, should be defrayed out of Imperial funds. Some of them on that side of the House took exception to a proposal made by the late Government in respect to grants in aid for local purposes; but here was a proposal to constitute District Committees locally elected, and supply them with funds from Imperial sources.
THE MARQUESS OF LOTHIANsaid, that was not his proposal. His proposal with regard to contributions from Imperial funds was confined to the expenses for police and to the purchase of mussel-beds.
§ LORD TWEEDMOUTHpointed out that, with regard to the purchase of mussel-beds, there was an alternative. It was not necessary that the District Committee should purchase mussel-beds; the Fishery Board had also the power under the Bill the Fishery Board with Imperial funds, and the Local Board with local funds.
§ LORD TWEEDMOUTHadmitted that the Bill did not provide the money. That was a matter for the Treasury, and it was open to the Treasury to increase the grant to the Fishery Board. But it was out of the ordinary course for the House to make the proposal.
THE MARQUESS OF LOTHIANIt was made by the House, and passed by the House for the very same purpose in 1892.
§ LORD TWEEDMOUTHNot for the purchase of mussel-beds?
§ LORD TWEEDMOUTHsaid, that with regard to the question of elections, he did not think there would be found any serious difficulty in holding the elections at the same time as the triennial County Council elections. The noble Marquess who moved the rejection of the Bill quoted the Report of a Committee of which he (Lord Tweedmouth) was Chairman, with reference to the necessity for a Convention with Foreign Powers. But that Committee did not consider any of the questions dealt with in the Bill at all. It was a Committee appointed to inquire into the method and desirability of prohibiting the sale and capture of immature fish, and they said they thought it would be desirable that a Convention should be entered into with foreign Powers, so that the same rule should apply to all nationalities fishing in the North Sea. He might say the Government were going to introduce a Bill on the subject without any such convention, of which the provisions would apply to British subjects alone. The whole point of the noble Marquess' criticism proceeded from the fear that some of his trawling friends in Aberdeen might be unduly interfered with; but he did not think the restrictions of the Bill would interfere very largely with their powers or their profits. He would be glad to refer the Bill to a Select Committee—not to take evidence, but to discuss its proposals.
LORD BALFOURsaid, that as the noble Lord seemed to rest his case for the Bill on the ground of its supposed similarity to the English Act of 1888, he should like to say that the objection which they felt to the provisions of the Bill, taken as a whole, was that although they corresponded in some particulars 259 with the English Act, they did not contain some of the safeguards that existed in the English measure. If the noble Lord would look carefully at the phraseology of Sub-clause 3 of Clause 5, he would find that as to the formation of fishery districts there was not the same discretion given, to the Secretary for Scotland as was given to the President of the Board of Trade, though the noble Lord seemed to intend that the discretion should be the same. The noble Lord had quite fairly stated that in England the representatives of fishery interests were nominated by the President of the Board of Trade, and he (Lord Balfour) agreed that that system was not altogether applicable to Scotland. But on the other hand there was a wide difference between a power of rating to persons carefully selected and giving it to persons elected solely by people who were directly interested in spending as much money as possible; and therefore they had reason to look carefully into those provisions of the Bill which proposed what might be a practically unlimited rate for a great variety of objects, many of which were not comprised within the English Act. He agreed that the cost of the machinery for carrying out the fishery district elections and the salaries of officers were legitimate local charges. He did not object to it, and would not object to it, provided there was some guarantee that it would be reasonable, and there would be some check on the expenditure to be incurred. There was no provision in the English Act for speculation in mussels; and he objected to power being given in that respect to the, Scotch District Committees. But he thought there was a way out of it; and it was a matter he would prefer to discuss on the Select Committee. After the discussion that had taken place he would not touch on trawling and other matters. But he asked the Lord Privy Seal to look carefully at the Clauses which dealt with bye-laws. They were wholly different from the English clauses, and in his humble opinion, they were absolutely unworkable, and unintelligible in their present form. In England all bye-laws were made by the Local Committees, and must be confirmed by the Board of Trade. Under the Bill as it stood, some might be made 260 by the local committees and there was no exact provision for their confirmation. Some of the bye-laws were to be made by the Fishery Board, and these had to be confirmed by the Secretary of State for Scotland. But the by-laws to be made by the local committees under Clause 9 were intended to be copied from the English Act, which certainly provided some confirmation by the central authority.
§ LORD TWEEDMOUTHSubject to regulations made in that behalf by the Fishery Board.
LORD BALFOURBut there was no definite provision for their confirmation, and he would tell their Lordships what objections he had to this. The Committees had within their districts the same powers under Clause 9 as the Fishery Board had under Clauses 10 and 11. The powers were to be much the same as in England. But the Board of Trade had no power to make any bye-laws themselves. Their duties were confined to confirmation, and did not extend to making bye-laws. He ventured to think that some authority, which was not itself concerned with the making of bye-laws, should be responsible for the confirmation of those made by the local committees, and surely the Secretary for Scotland, or even the Board of Trade—which had jurisdiction in Scotland, as well as in England, in many matters—should have some voice in it? Then the penalties which were to be imposed upon those convicted of the offence of trawling in closed waters were unduly severe under the Bill. As he understood Clause 12, it gave powers which did not exist under any other Act, and increased the penalty to £100. This would be a matter for consideration in Committee. He was glad to hear the Lord Privy Seal say that lie would be, willing that a Select Committee should be appointed to consider the Bill. He joined with the noble Lord in expressing the hope that, although there was much divergence of opinion as to the methods by which certain objects of the Bill were to be carried out, there would not be so much divergence as to the objects aimed at as might appear from the discussion that had taken place.
THE MARQUESS OF HUNTLYsaid, that if the Bill were to be referred to a Select Committee he would suggest 261 whether the Committee might not be empowered to take evidence from the Officials of the Fishery Board and the Board of Trade? His experience of the workings of the English Act was entirely the reverse of that of the noble Lord, and he wanted to know how a Select Committee of their Lordships could come to a conclusion unless they heard the evidence of the officials he had mentioned.
§ LORD TWEEDMOUTHsaid, he could not consent to the suggestion, as it was a condition that the Committee should not be a Committee to take evidence.
§ Motion agreed to, and Bill referred to a Select Committee.