I raised the question of the levy and the Parliamentary Secretary in reply stated that the present price of salmon would bear it. Of course it would if the price of salmon remained what it is now but I do not foresee that the price of salmon will remain at the present figure. I gave my reasons then and I mentioned that it costs about 1/- a lb. now to deliver salmon in London. That is all to come off the fishermen, these poor men. If the price of salmon falls to the prices that we knew, 2/6 and 3/6 a lb. and if you take the cost of the box and the freight, together with this levy, it will approximate to about 1/- a lb. I think that making this permanent legislation, and ignoring the variations that will take place in price, will put an unbearable burden on poor men and drive them out of fishing for salmon altogether. I am convinced that, with the world situation as it is to-day, and looking at the prospects for the future, I am right in that. Therefore, I think that the Parliamentary Secretary should not press this too far. He has told us that this money is to aid the conservators, to give them money for protection purposes. I do not want to repeat what I said on that on the Second Reading of the Bill. I wonder will this additional sum of money which the conservators are to get tend to increase the efficiency of the protection of salmon. I do not think that any amount of additional money which is given over and above what is provided at present is going to do that. So far as I know, the rivers are reasonably well protected. I do not think that anything more in the line of additional water bailiffs is going to make the protection of them any more efficient than it is.
I do not think this is the proper road to travel. We know enough about our people to be able to say that while protection for the rivers is one thing repression is quite another thing. I am sure Deputies will agree with me that if there is one people on the face of the earth who will resist repression it is our people. Therefore, I do not see the need for any additional sum of money to be given to the conservators. What we really want is respect and obedience for the fishery laws. No amount of repression is going to solve that problem. We should be prepared to provide reasonable facilities for the average man who wants to fish for salmon during his leisure hours. Provided he pays a couple of pounds for a licence, he should be given that right. I am not concerned with the amount of salmon that he will take out of the river. Probably he will catch none at all. I suggest to the House that it would be a retrograde step to deny these reasonable facilities to our own people. Surely, it is far better that a man should spend a few hours on the banks of a river fishing than amongst the ranks of the industrious unemployed at the street corners in our local towns or villages.