He has lived for forty-five years on the banks of a salmon river, and he knows that I don't fish.

But this much the conversation reveals: his own knowledge of the subject is confined to the piece of river he happens to own, the gossip he hears at his club, and the ideas of the particular poacher he employs as his gillie.

His suggested remedy is the abolition of all netting.

But I have to tell him that only the day before I had a deputation from the net fishermen in the estuary of this very river, whose bitter complaint was that this 'poor man's industry' was being destroyed by the mackerel and herring nets round the coast, and--I thought my friend would have a fit--by the way in which the gentlemen on the upper waters neglect their duty of protecting the spawning fish! Some belonging to the lower water interest carried their scepticism as to the efficacy of artificial propagation to the length of believing that hatcheries are partially responsible for the decrease.

As so often happens, the opposing interests, disagreeing on all else, find that best of peacemakers, a common enemy, in the Government.