FISH AND GAME PRESERVATION.

Evening Post, Volume LVI, Issue 5, 6 July 1898, Page 4

FISH AND GAME PRESERVATION.

* The Legislative Council was engaged yesterday afternoon in discussing two Bills which concern very directly those interested in the preservation of fish and game in the colony. The Bills are the outcome of the recent Conference of Acclimatisation Societies, and are mainly devoted to consolidating and amending previous legislation for the protection of fish and wild animals. It may be taken as a fixed principle in a new, democratic country like this that nothing shall be done towards the establishment of those oppressive game laws which have done so much to create criminals and engender class divisions in older lands. We do not want the fish and game of the colony, whether native or imported, to become instruments of sport or articles of food for the well-to-do alone. If preservation is to be undertaken at all, it must not be in the exclusive interests of any particular class of the community, but so far as possible in the interests" of all. In order to do this it is scarcely necessary to advance the grotesque theories of a certain honourable Councillor, who considered a shooting license should give its holder a perfect right to trespass at pleasure on any part of another man's property in pursuit of game. English farmers naturally object to aristocratic sportsmen making free with their lands, and no doubt New Zealand farmers would equally object to socialistic sportsmen following the evil example. The fact remains that unscrupulous depletion of fish and reckless killing of game by men who are neither sportsmen nor in need of the food they seize is working great havoc amongst both native and imported fish and animals. Such being the case, it is necessary that the State should enforce penalties against those who wage war on the animal world in close seasons, and otherwise provide for the preservation of such fish, and birds as afford 1 sport and food to its people. With regard to the conservation of fisheries, provisions are contained in the Bill which will, to a certain extent, affect such industries as sawmilling, wool-scouring, and fellmongery. Care must, . of course, be taken not to injure them un- * necessarily, but there is no apparent reason why they should not be so conducted as not, - to interfere with the purity of streams or poison the fish. A point of some importance to agriculturists was raised by Mr. Arkwright, who objected to the protection afforded to hare§. and pointed out what a uuisance they became in some places. It has been arranged to submit these Bills to a Joint Committee, which may consider carefully their provisions. Alan3 r undoubtedly - need amendment, but the general purpose — namely, the preservation of our fish and game — is to be commended.