SALMON FISHERIES (SCOTLAND). (Hansard, 4 August 1899)

§ THE SECRETARY FOR SCOTLAND (Lord BALFOUR of BURLEIGH)
My Lords, I rise to call attention to the Report of the Royal Commission of 1895 on the Tweed Fisheries Acts; and to present a Bill to repeal the Tweed Fisheries Acts, and to provide for the application of the Salmon Fisheries (Scotland) Acts to the district of the River Tweed. I shall not detain the House very long in introducing this Bill, 1425 but I desire to say a few words of explanation in laying the Bill upon the Table of your Lordships' House, and in asking your Lordships to give it a First Reading. The object of now submitting the Bill is that its provisions may be considered during the months that are to come by those on the Tweed who will be affected by it, and who will be, in all probability, interested in what is proposed to be done. The Bill is founded entirely upon the leading recommendations of the long and exhaustive inquiry which was conducted by a Commission, under the Chairmanship of Mr. Stafford Howard, two or three years ago. The leading recommendation of the Commission, in which they were all unanimous, was that the special Acts which regulate salmon fisheries on the Tweed should be abolished, and that the Tweed should come under the general law which regulates salmon fisheries in Scotland. The Tweed is in a very peculiar position at the present time. The whole length of the river is a hundred miles, of which eighty are in Scotland. About seventeen form the boundary between England and Scotland, and the four miles above the mouth are wholly in England. The law which governs the fisheries in the Tweed are in a state of great confusion. There are two leading special TweedActs—the Act of 1857 and the Act of 1859; but, in addition, there are some Acts which apply to salmon fisheries throughout the whole of the United Kingdom, and these are applicable to the Tweed. There are some Acts which apply only to Scotland, and some which apply only to England. At present, in the case of some of these Acts, the English Acts apply to the English part of the Tweed, and the Scotch Acts in whole, or in part, to the Scottish part of the Tweed. But the confusion does not even stop there, because some of the Acts apply in part to the Tweed; some clauses and sections apply to the Tweed, and some do not. In one case, at least, a Scottish Act applies to the Tweed, but the amending Act of this Scottish Act does not. I think your Lordships will see that the present state of the law is one of great difficulty and confusion, and it has not been successful, because there have been complaints from time to time during the last thirty years that the take of salmon in the Tweed has been diminishing. There was an inquiry by Mr. Walpole and a 1426 colleague in 1874, and they came to that conclusion. Mr. Stafford Howard's Commission came to the same conclusion. They said that the annual take of salmon varies very much, but the figures of recent years show that, while the good years seem to be up to their former average, the bad years have fallen below their average, and the witnesses were practically unanimous in declaring, as regards the upper waters of the river, that the fish had greatly decreased. I am afraid that matters are worse at the present time than they were three or four years ago. The reasons which were assigned, first by Mr. Walpole and his colleague, and then by Mr. Howard's Commission, were three: First, that there is not such good access to the upper waters, on account of the rapidity with which the drainage of land causes the floods to run off; secondly, that there is greater pollution than there used to be; and, thirdly, that the decrease is due, to some extent, to the prevalence of poaching, and the fact that the sympathies of the population are unfortunately with the poachers. I am afraid that the first of these causes is not likely to be remedied. The second, I would hope, will receive the attention of Parliament. I believe, speaking for myself personally, there is nothing more urgently required than a more efficient means of preventing the pollution of rivers, whether by sewage or by manufacturing refuse, but it is obviously not within the scope of this Bill to deal with that matter. With regard to the other cause, the prevalence of poaching, there is a good deal to be said, and it is clearly proved by the evidence before this Commission that there is a great deal of illegal fishing, both at the mouth of the river and in the upper waters. The Commission say that the lawlessness in fishing in the close season appears to have been getting worse, being openly carried on by day as well as night. A good number of cases of assault on bailiffs had occurred, and the throwing of stones has been mentioned. The police, though sufficient for ordinary purposes, because the people were in sympathy with the ordinary law, were not sufficient to protect the bailiffs, as the people were entirely out of sympathy with the special Tweed Acts. The opinion was expressed that, if the body of the people could be turned into sympathy with the law, the bailiffs would have no trouble, or, 1427 at any rate, less trouble, and these attacks would be put down. There is much more to be said to the same effect, but the facts are of such common notoriety (and the state of matters has been going rapidly from bad to worse), that I do not dwell upon them at the present time, because I believe they are perfectly within the knowledge of all the noble Lords who are interested in salmon fisheries in this district, and probably many more besides. The end of it is, that the main recommendation of this Commission was to the effect that the special Tweed Acts should be abolished, and that the general law should be applied to the Tweed. In support of that opinion the Commissioners expressed their belief that if this was to be carried out the objection to some of the clauses, at any rate, of the Acts which have been referred to, would be met by their repeal. Section 45 of the Act of 1857, which forbids the use of nets in certain parts of the sea during the close season; Section 50, which forbids the possession of nets within five miles of the river by unauthorised persons, and especially Section 69, have given rise to a great deal of bad feeling, and I believe myself there is evidence for saying, a certain amount of injustice. The latter is known as the intent clause. It allows an attempt to take salmon illegally to be inferred under certain circumstances—not to be proved, but to be inferred. There is also that part of Section 82, which provides that persons accused before a court, if they do not appear, may be held as having confessed to being guilty, and be fined in their absence without proof being laid. These are only instances of some of the clauses of the Tweed Acts, which had led to the state of feeling which the Commission described. It is also the case that the repeal of the special Acts and the substitution of the general law will carry with it the abolition of the body called the Tweed Commission, and it will set up in its place a district board, subject in all respects to the general law. On account of the length of the river and the magnitude of the interests involved, we propose, by the Bill, that that board shall be rather more numerous in numbers than it would be under the general law. Apart from all these detailed changes, the broad advantage which I believe will be secured by the Bill will be that the feeling of fishermen, who believe that they are at 1428 present more unfairly dealt with than fishermen in other districts, will be removed by their being placed under the general law. I propose to allude to one other matter, and that is Section 8 of the Bill. Section 8 keeps the present annual close time of the Tweed. The present close time of the Tweed is, I understand, stereotyped by Act of Parliament, and cannot be altered. If the river is placed under the general law there would be power, under the procedure therein provided, upon the petition of persons interested, to have the particular dates altered, always provided that the maximum number of 168 days was retained. In addition to that, there would be power to alter the weekly close time, which at present is only thirty-six hours, or, at least, twelve hours shorter than what is usual under more recent Acts. There is one special provision also to which I should allude. At the present time, on the Tweed, it is not lawful to possess a "gaff" at any time of the year. Under the general law, as your Lordships know, that is not the case. We propose to maintain that prohibition. I was very much tempted to attempt to alter it, so far as the general law is concerned, and prevent the gaffing of kelts, which by law have to be returned into the river. It seems to me not only a wasteful and foolish, but a cruel practice, and I personally would be very glad to prohibit it if possible; but I do not wish to raise more objections to this particular Bill than are absolutely necessary. Therefore I avoid in it any attempt to amend the general law. I am far from thinking that this Bill will cure all the evils under which the river Tweed is suffering. I believe it will make a step if it is carried—a long step—towards a more satisfactory state of matters, and that it will make it more easy to introduce much-needed reforms. While I am not hopeful that the Bill will be accepted with unanimity, I have a great hope that a careful study of its provisions, and the full Memorandum which is attached to it, will clear away a great deal of opposition, and that in another session of Parliament we may hope to see it passed into law. I beg to move that the Bill be read a first time.

THE MARQUESS OF LOTHIAN
I congratulate my noble friend on having. 1429 introduced this Bill. I have not had the pleasure of seeing the Bill, and I can only gather what will be the effect of it from the observations of my noble friend. I am more glad to see the Bill brought in now, because, when I was holding the office in 1888 of Secretary for Scotland, I introduced a Bill for the same object. Owing, however, to opposition in the House of Commons, that Bill failed to receive the sanction of Parliament, and did not become law. I have always felt very strongly that the provisions of the Tweed Acts have been anomalous. A difficulty, however, arose in the matter, which probably my noble friend has been able to get over. Some of the rivers which fall into the Tweed are on the English side, and therefore, if they were included under the general law, there might be a conflict of jurisdiction, as the English side might wish to be under the English general law. I have no doubt my noble friend has succeeded in getting over that difficulty, and I feel certain the Bill which he has introduced will be of great advantage to the fisheries on the Tweed. Before saying whether I altogether approve of the abolition of the Tweed Commissioners, and the placing of the powers of that body in the hands of a district board, I should like to see the details of the Bill. Under the Bill many of the restrictions now imposed, and many of the disadvantages which are experienced in the higher reaches of the Tweed, will be done away with, and the fishermen there will be put on a more equal footing with those in the lower reaches. When the Bill is before us, I shall give it my earnest consideration.

§ LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH
With regard to the point raised by the noble Marquess, I may say that it is the intention in this Bill that the Tweed and all its tributaries, whether in England or in Scotland, should be under the Scottish law.