SALMON AND FRESHWATER FISHERIES BILL. (Hansard, 21 June 1923)

§ VISCOUNT ULLSWATER

My Lords, before we finally part with this Bill, I should like to say a word or two about it. Your Lordships will probably remember that at a very late stage in the other House a clause was introduced constituting a fishery board for the Solway Firth. This fishery board is of a somewhat peculiar character, and has to depend entirely for its funds upon the contributions which it would or could receive from some of the neighbouring fishery boards. In that part of the world, with which for many years I was very closely connected, we have always been struggling to get a fishery board for the Solway which, by administering the two sides of the Solway, the Scottish and the English, and having them both under their own control, would be able to carry out a just and fair administration as between the Englishmen and the Scotsmen.

At this stage I need not go into the many difficulties which exist as between the two sides of the Solway. We on our side think that the Scotsmen have always got the better of us and are in a better position to catch the fish in the Solway than we are. But, however that may be, I think we have agreed that the proper method of solving the difficulty is to have a joint board. So far, so good. But the joint board are given no powers of raising any funds for the purpose for which they would really be most useful; that is, to purchase the fishing rights in the fixed engines which belong to the Scotsmen on the northern side of the Solway. What we have always looked for is that some board would be established which would have the right to raise by some means or other sufficient funds to buy these 561 proprietors out. On the last occasion on which this Bill was before your Lordships I suggested that the Solway Board should be given the right to establish fixed engines on the southern side of the Solway. Those engines they would let out by means of licences and would be able to collect funds, which, being accumulated, would enable them to buy out the nets on the other side, and then, in course of time, the nets on both sides would gradually disappear.

But superior wisdom decided that it was undesirable that the Solway Board should have this right. The result is somewhat peculiar, because the contributory boards—the Eden Fishery Board, for example, which would be a contributory board to the Solway Board—have the right of establishing these fixed engines under Clause 38, subsection (1), paragraph (e). The Bill gives power to every fishery board to set up fixed engines and to lease them, and in that way to raise funds for themselves. But the power which is given to the contributory boards is not given to the superior board. The result is that the superior board is left without any funds; whereas the contributory board, the minor body, is entitled under the Bill to set up these engines and to receive funds. I venture to think that is a very anomalous position and is really a rather serious blot upon the Bill. In all other respects I think the Bill is an admirable one and I am very glad indeed that it has had such an easy passage through your Lordships' House. I trust that it may result in the catching of a very much larger number of salmon than have hitherto come to the rod.