The Protection of Crabs and Lobsters

Extract

“Every legislative restriction means the creation of a new offence. In the case of fishery it means that a simple man of the people, earning a scanty livelihood by hard toil, shall be liable to fine or imprisonment for doing that which he and his fathers before him have, up to that time, been free to do.

“If the general interest clearly requires that this burden should be put upon the fisherman—well and good. But if it does not—if, indeed, there is any doubt about the matter—I think that the man who has made the unnecessary law deserves a heavier punishment than the man who breaks it.”—Huxley, Inaugural Address, Fisheries Exhibition, 1883.