FISHERIES PRESERVATION ASSOCIATION.
President
HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF NORTHUMBERLAND, Northumberland House.
Vice-President
LORD DE BLAQUIERE, 9, Stratford Place.
Council
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Lord Abinger, 48, Chester Square. |
Peter Hood, Esq., M.D., 23, Lower Seymour Street.
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P. Hood, Esq., Treasurer
Bankers
SIR SAMUEL SCOTT, Bart. & Co., 1, Cavendish Square.
REPORT FOR THE YEAR ENDING MAY 1st, 1868.
The Council beg to submit to the Members their Report for the past year.
Lord de Blaquiere having expressed a wish to retire from the Presidency of the Association in favour of {{sc|His Grace the Duke of Northumberland (who, as Earl Percy, had already last year been elected a Member of the Council), and the Duke having accepted the post, the Council have much pleasure in stating that His Grace has been chosen President accordingly,
Lord de Blaquiere at the same time, the Council are extremely happy to say, consents to give to the Association, as Vice-President, the benefit of his continued services and influence. It is with much gratification the Council announce the accession to their Board of Lord Abinger, who was unanimously elected a Member of the Council in February last.
They also have to announce that, in appreciation of their valuable services to important Salmon Fisheries, Joseph Dodds, Esq., Honorary Secretary of the Tees Salmon Fishery Landowners' Association, and John Lloyd, Esq, of Huntington Court, Hereford, a Conservator of the Wye, Usk, and Ebbw Fisheries, have been elected Honorary Members of the Association.
With respect to the great object which the Council have so constantly held in view, and so long striven to effect—the prevention of the pollution of the Rivers of the kingdom—they grieve to say that they see no chance this Session of the hope which they ventured to express in their last Report being fulfilled, viz., of obtaining a remedial measure for that evil.
The state of the public business in Parliament, the position of Parliament itself, and the unexpected inaction of the Government as represented by the Home Secretary, alike preclude the expectation that any such measure can possibly be introduced during the present Session.
Steadfast, however, to their purpose of inducing, if possible, the Government to bring in a Bill on the subject, on the 6th August last a Deputation from the Association, introduced by their President (Lord de Blaquiere), and which had the advantage of being joined by Lord Northwick, and by Col. Sykes, Mr. Candlish, and other Members of Parliament and persons of influence, had an audience of the Home Secretary, when the question, both on the paramount ground of the public health and as it affected the Fisheries, was most earnestly pressed on the consideration of Mr. Gathorne Hardy, and the reply of Mr. Hardy to the Deputation was such as to create the belief that the Government would not let the present Session pass without taking legislative action in the matter, that reply being that "he did not intend to continue the investigations, as he believed the experience gained by the inquiries into a few rivers would govern the whole."
A few days after this Deputation the Commissioners on the Pollution of Rivers made their Report to the Home Secretary on the state of the Aire and Calder. Of this Report it may suffice to say that, dreadful and disgusting as was the picture presented in the Commissioners' former Reports of the pollution of the Upper Thames and the Lea, the description they give of the polluted condition of the Aire and Calder far surpasses that picture in its worst and most revolting features.
Notwithstanding that Report, however, and the auspicious answer to the Deputation just stated, to the Council's great surprise and mortification, the Home Secretary, when questioned, on the 24th February last, on the subject by the Member for Sunderland (Mr. Candlish), answered that "he was not prepared to legislate in the matter this Session, and that he was about to appoint a fresh Commission to continue the inquiries;" and, since that declaration, the Right Honourable Gentleman has appointed such fresh Commission.
