Besides pollution, two things are especially detrimental to the Scottish salmon fisheries. The first to be mentioned, is the abominable practice of building weirs across rivers in order to send water into mill-lades, and the ignoring of the law that requires that the water shall be periodically diverted into the river again. Certain proprietors, to make the most of their lands, give perpetual leases of ground to manufacturers of one kind or other, with liberty to build a weir and take water to turn their machinery. There may be provisions in the lease as there is in law to the effect that the withdrawal of water shall cease during the night and on Sundays. Such provisions are, however, in many instances neglected, as giving too much trouble. The result is, that the whole river, or very nearly the whole, except in times of flood, is diverted into the mill-lade, whereby trout and salmon are unable to surmount the weir, and are effectually barred from getting to the upper part of the stream. In plain terms, by the selfishness of a proprietor (or a pair of them, one on each side), all who dwell on the river above the weir are deprived of the fish which nature had bountifully assigned to them. Already in these pages we have alluded to a scandalous case of this kind on the Tweed.
The second of the two things which act detrimentally on the Scottish salmon fisheries is the circumstance that certain landed proprietors near the mouths of some rivers possess a right to establish nets for the purpose of catching all the salmon that attempt to go up the stream. We do not contest the legality of their arrangements. We only speak of the cruel way it acts on the rights of all who live in the upper parts of the river, and on whose waters the salmon have bred. While the lower proprietors catch the great bulk of the fish, those higher up get but a miserable remnant. During the whole of the time that the nets are on, the lower proprietors have a practical monopoly of the fishings. Is that at all reasonable? As a consequence, first of the weirs, and second of the netting system of the lower proprietors, there is evoked throughout the upper part of rivers in Scotland, a gloomy and almost vengeful hatred of the existing salmon-fishing system. Of course the higher and middle classes take no part in demonstrating their sense of the injustice that is committed. The lower classes, less scrupulous, and indignant at the rapacity of the weir-owners and lower proprietors, take such salmon as they can get hold of in spawning-time, thus destroying by myriads in embryo what should have been a vast national advantage. Detesting as we do all sorts of poaching and irregularities, we are glad that the Commissioners appointed to investigate the condition of the Scottish salmon fisheries, have laid stress upon the miserable imperfections to which we have ventured to draw attention.