in permanent pasture interspersed with parks and copses as cover for
game, or left desolate as moor and deer forest, were covered with the
small farms of prosperous peasants, like Belgium or Denmark, and the
more rugged and uncultivable districts turned into national forests
giving regular and healthy employment to large numbers of men, would
not far better results be obtained, even from the purely economic point
of view? _Now_ we have a few gamekeepers and beaters, a few grooms,
jockeys, stablemen, and horse-dealers, and other dependents of the
sportsmen, and a few farmers, breeding horses and growing fodder for
them, while the labourers are turned out of their native village for
want of work and house-room, and drift into the already overcrowded
and hideous towns which daily absorb more and more of the country,
or are even forced to leave their native land altogether and seek a
livelihood in lands beyond the sea, free, as yet, from the blessings
of sport; _then_ we should have some millions of free men earning an
honest living in healthful surroundings, and producing a thousandfold
more wealth for themselves than is distributed by the aristocrats and
plutocrats, who, according to the protagonist of the Sporting League,
so fully “carry out the principles of Communism.”
But it is surely needless to labour the point. The arguments of the
economic defenders of sport are so grotesque that it is difficult to
believe that a sensible man of business like Mr. Martin can really be
in earnest in his advocacy of sport as a means of finding employment
for the people.
But sports, and especially blood-sports, are not only defended on the
ground that they give employment, circulate money, and confer other
economic advantages on an ungrateful nation. As _The Field_ contends,
there are “assets which cannot be calculated in shillings and pence,”
and the author of our entertaining tract challenges those “who, with
the bigotry characteristic of all faddists,” attack the chasing of
hares and foxes, or the worship of the sacred bird, to “look at the
matter straight and see what inestimable benefit sport is to the
nation. Should we ever lose our love for sport,” he continues, “or be
prevented indulging it, we shall assuredly lose our manliness, and very
likely our wealth, and then what will become of the nation?”
The word “sport” is a very loose and indefinite word. It covers all
kind of healthful and innocent exercises as well as hunting, shooting,
and racing. No one doubts that an open-air life is a natural and
healthy life; that running and riding, and swimming and sailing, and
other outdoor exercises and games, are good both for mind and body; but
the “moral and intellectual damages” of all blood-sports are a very
serious set-off against any physical advantages they may have.
A staunch defender of sport was once dwelling--in debate--on the
glories of a day with the hounds, and describing how a ride across
country in the fresh frosty air swept the cobwebs from the brain of the
jaded city man and sent the blood coursing healthily through his veins.
He was met by the rejoinder that all these advantages could be got by
a gallop over the downs, or, at any rate, by a “drag” hunt. “Ah, but
that’s not all,” he cried, “one must have the zest of running down and
killing an animal, and thus satisfying a natural instinct.” The reply
that such an instinct was an echo of primeval savagery, and just one
of those which hinder the upward progress of the race--one, also, more
completely gratified by the butcher or the slaughter-man--only provoked
the anger of the sportsman, and failed to shake his rooted belief in
the blessings of sport.
“Ah, Sport is the pride of the nation!
It made Britons the men that they be;
It does good to the whole population,
And knows neither class nor degree.”
This doggerel, with which Mr. Sargent concludes his tract on sport,
encourages the notion that blood-sports develop manliness, and that
if Englishmen ceased to ride to hounds, to hunt the hare or otter, or
shoot the pheasant and partridge, they would become effeminate. This
superstition ought surely to have received its death-blow by the events
of the Russo-Japanese war. When we hear of the rice-eating, gentle
Japanese, who prefer taming wild creatures by kindness to shooting or
mangling them, performing prodigies of valour apparently quite beyond
the capacity of the fiercer nations of the West, it is surely time to
revise our conceptions of what true courage is, and how it is nurtured.
And any manliness which might be nurtured by sport is steadily being
reduced to a minimum. The author of our ingenuous tract descants,
indeed, on the hardships endured by fox-hunters, grouse-shooters, and
deer-stalkers, but says nothing of the noble sportsmen who merely wait
till the pheasants are driven past them, to slaughter them at their
ease as fast as loaded guns can be handed them, or of those who find a
manly pastime in shooting pigeons let loose from cages. Shall we form a
high opinion of the manly virtues of the well-to-do cowards who chase
tame stags, or of the low-class ruffians who let frightened and dazed
rabbits out of bags for a hopeless run for life before savage dogs? The
insensibility which delights in seeing a fox torn to pieces by hounds,
or which feels no pain when that excessively sensitive and timorous
creature, the hare, is seen dropping from exhaustion with a pack of
harriers in full cry on its track, is not an element of true manliness,
but a survival from a pre-human state. In the savage state the mighty
hunter was a hero because he bravely risked his life for the defence of
wife and child against strong and fierce beasts that might else have
devoured them, or endured toil and hardship, and encountered danger
in the search for food and clothing. But in England to-day hunting
is an anachronism, which survives only because land-monopoly, and an
unjust distribution of the national inheritance, have led our “splendid
barbarians,” in the absence of the need for work, through the pressure
of social distinctions, and the want of higher mental development, to
seek release from boredom and fill up an aimless life by the indulgence
and artificial stimulation of subhuman instincts.
Even those sports which, like cricket and football, take the form of
health-giving games in the open air, and may really help to develop
manliness, are to a large extent spoiled by the rise of professionalism
and gambling. The great crowds which assemble to see other men engage
in the hazardous game of football, and to exercise themselves merely
in betting on the players, are being trained neither in manliness nor
morals. We should indeed do all in our power to cultivate manliness,
but it must be the quality which truly answers to the name; a fortitude
capable of enduring hardships without whining, and a deliberate human
courage which realises the danger, and consciously and resolutely
faces it, not the mere brute fearlessness of animal excitement,
insensibility, and stupidity.
It behoves all, therefore, who have the interest of humanity at heart,
and are striving to help it on its upward way, to set themselves
resolutely against blood-sports in any form, as a relic of savagery and
an enemy to true manliness, and to endeavour to dissociate manly and
health-giving sports from gambling, and to abolish the professional.
To do all this effectively we must work for the abolition of the
parasitic classes; we must strive to give all a share in the national
inheritance, and such an education, mental, moral, and physical, as may
fit them for the work of life, and for a wise and healthy use of the
increased leisure in which all should share.
THE ECONOMICS OF HUNTING
BY W. H. S. MONCK
It is often maintained that hunting, whatever objections may be
raised to it on grounds of humanity, is beneficial to the public. The
reasoning by which it is sought to establish this thesis reminds one of
that by which Dr. Mandeville endeavoured to prove that private vices
were public benefits; but it is proposed in this article to examine
the subject more fully. Cruel sports, generally speaking, are not, I
believe, public benefits, even from the pecuniary point of view; but as
the grounds for this assertion are not the same in all instances, they
cannot all be dealt with in a single article. Nor do I propose in the
present instance to deal with all sports that come under the head of
hunting. I shall confine myself to hunting animals with hounds, the men
and women who participate in the sport being usually mounted.
Labour generally may be referred economically to the two heads of
productive and unproductive. It is productive if it produces more than
the cost of the labourer’s maintenance (taking his past maintenance
preparatory to his work into consideration), and unproductive if it
produces less. And in general there is an objection to employing labour
in a less productive manner than it might otherwise be employed. A
great author or a great statesman might be able to earn more than his
bread by breaking stones on a road, but everyone would regard forcibly
employing him in this manner as a waste of labour. Horse-labour and
even dog-labour may be similarly regarded; or, to put it otherwise,
the labour of every horse and every dog represents a certain amount of
human labour which must be regarded as usefully employed or as wasted,
according to the work which the horse or dog does. If I set a horse to
draw a big stone to the top of a hill and then down again, everyone
would regard this amount of horse-labour as wasted; but it would be
different if the same horse were employed in drawing stones to the
site of a building where they were required. And in estimating the
productiveness or unproductiveness of labour in any given case, we must
have regard to the value of what it produces to society in general, and
not merely to the amount which the labourer receives for producing it.
One might earn £100 by walking a mile in the shortest period on record
without producing anything of the slightest utility to mankind.
Human labour, however, in a country like this, is capable of
producing more than is required to feed and clothe the population and
to supply them with fire and shelter. There remains a surplus which
may be devoted to mental improvement or to any innocent recreation.
Recreation must be regarded as a good thing, and labour employed in
producing recreation cannot be regarded as absolutely unproductive.
It may, however, be unproductive in the wider sense in which I have
used the term--viz., the value of the product does not suffice to pay
for the maintenance of the labourers. I mean, of course, the value of
the labour _to society_. Those who employ it, I presume, consider it
worth what they expend on it--_to themselves_. But they might be of a
different opinion if they had less money to expend.
Turning then to our recreations, I think I may lay down in the first
instance that the best recreations are those in which the largest
number of persons can participate. And it is more especially desirable
that the working-classes should participate in them, for the man who
spends most of his available time at hard labour stands in much greater
need of recreation than the man or woman who has little or nothing
to do--whose ordinary life, perhaps, includes more recreation (or,
at least, idleness) than labour. But working men cannot afford to
keep or to hire horses, and seldom possess any skill in horsemanship;
and if one of them did happen to obtain a mount and was able to ride
successfully, his presence at a hunt would be resented as an intrusion.
Hunts are recreations for the wealthy classes only, and this mainly
results from their expensiveness. The poor could not join in a hunt
without paying more than they could afford to pay. But money always
represents labour, and an expensive recreation means a recreation on
which a large amount of labour has been expended without any useful
result except this recreation.
In these last remarks I have anticipated the next condition of a good
recreation--viz., that the expenditure of labour on it should be small.
The more labour we can spare from recreation for works of more abiding
utility, the better. But hunting is very expensive, and the promoters
are not philanthropic enough to expend the additional sum which might
enable a greater number of persons to participate in it. The hounds
consume a large amount of food which could be used to better purpose if
they were out of the way. A number of persons are employed in looking
after the hounds whose labour has no productive result except in
contributing remotely to the pleasures of the chase. Kennels have to
be erected for keeping them, and horses and machines are required for
moving them. Great numbers of horses used in hunting do no other useful
work whatever, and these are often high-class and high-priced horses.
Then there are huntsmen, whippers-in, etc., to say nothing of the food
supplied to the horses, and of the persons employed to look after
the foxes or other animals intended for the chase. Fox-coverts often
occupy land that would otherwise be valuable, and the preservation of
deer and hares prevents land from being put to the best agricultural
uses. That hunting always reduces, and very materially reduces, the
proceeds of labour available for the use of the public cannot, I think,
be seriously disputed; and in many cases labour is diverted from these
productive uses to the production of recreation for others, in which
the labourer himself does not participate. A similar remark is often
applicable to grooms.
Another condition of a good recreation is that it should do no harm
to others. But can this be said of hunting? As regards fox-hunting
in particular, the fox is a mischievous animal, and would have been
exterminated like the wolf long ago if he had not been preserved for
the pleasure of hunting him. He kills young lambs, fowl, and anything
of the kind that comes in his way; and woe to the farmer who revenges
himself by killing the depredator! Even the hare and the deer are far
from innocuous. But the hunt does more mischief than the animals that
are hunted. The hunters break down the farmer’s fences and frighten
his cattle and sheep, often causing the loss of his calves or lambs,
and injure his crops, while he has no redress because the landlord has
reserved the right of hunting over the land.
THE RECREATION OF THE FEW.
We are told that hunting necessitates a large expenditure of money
in the district. Every expensive amusement must do that. But if the
most expensive amusement was the most valuable to society, it would
follow that the way to benefit society was to increase the amount
of unproductive labour. But even with productive labour our great
object is to obtain the desired product with as little labour--as
little expense--as possible. The more cheaply we can produce the
necessaries and conveniences of life, the better it will be for the
people. This will hardly be disputed. Why, then, should we apply a
contrary rule to recreations, and lay down that the more expensive
they are, the more beneficial they will prove to society? Granted that
a hunt produces a large expenditure of money in the district, that
some deserving shopkeepers and tradesmen make a profit thereby, and
some honest labourers are employed at better wages than they would
receive if the money in question were not expended--what then? What
would become of the money thus expended if there were no hunt? It is
almost certain that it would be expended in a manner more advantageous
to the community. Even if the owner of the money wished to invest it
rather than to spend it, he would probably do so by employing it in
the working of a railway, or a mine, or some other work of public
utility. If he simply lodged it in a bank it would enable the bank to
lend more money to its customers to be employed by them for useful
purposes; and if he kept it in his house in bank-notes the results
would be pretty much the same as if he had lodged it in the bank. It
might not, of course, be expended in the district, but we should look
to the interests of the kingdom rather than those of the district.
But save in the few cases in which persons come from a distance to
enjoy the pleasures of hunting in a particular district, I believe the
money would usually be expended in the same district, and with greater
advantage to the inhabitants, if there were no hunt. The comparison
should not be made between the district with this expenditure and
the same district without it, but between the district with this
expenditure and the same district with the same sum expended in a
different manner. Would the same sum, if otherwise expended, be likely
to prove less beneficial to the district? I think not.
Hunting is, therefore, objectionable as a recreation on many distinct
grounds. It affords recreation to only a small number of persons, these
being the very persons who are least in need of recreation. It involves
the expenditure of a large amount of labour (direct or indirect) as
compared with the amount of recreation produced; and, passing over the
sufferings of the hunted animal altogether, it involves no small amount
of injury and accidents both to men and animals. But, in the wider
view of the modern economist, it is also objectionable as cultivating
a callousness of feeling and disregard of suffering which is in the
last degree undesirable--and especially as cultivating this feeling
among the class from which our legislators are largely drawn. They
become inured to regard with indifference not only the sufferings of
the hunted animal, but those of other animals and even people which
they witness. If there were less hunting and shooting among the class
from which the majority of the legislature is drawn, the humanitarian
cause would receive a fairer hearing in Parliament, as would also be
the case if flogging were abolished at the public schools, where the
members of this class are for the most part educated. But what are
we to think of education at a school like Eton, where flogging is
supplemented by a pack of beagles? I would rather “teach the young idea
how to shoot” than how to hunt, or how to flog. How often do we hear
the argument--stated in somewhat more circuitous terms--“I hunt, and
therefore hunting must be right. I was flogged, and therefore flogging
must be right!”
We have only to break down the barriers between the different classes
somewhat farther, in order to put an end to all such class-amusements
as hunting undoubtedly is. In cricket, for example, we see gentlemen
and professionals playing side by side and vying with each other as
to who will do the best service for his county, while thousands of
spectators of all ranks assemble to watch the play. But in games
conducted on horseback the public can rarely participate. When, like
polo, they are conducted in a confined space, the public can look on,
but they cannot keep the hunt in view for any considerable time.
In dealing with sports and their cost, there is a principle which
we must never lose sight of: Sports do not produce money or wealth.
Their function is merely to distribute money or wealth when otherwise
produced. Is the mode of distribution which we are considering a good
one? It is certain that those who decided on expending their money
in this manner were not actuated solely or chiefly by considerations
of public utility; and considering how difficult it often is to
determine what mode of expending a given sum will on the whole
prove most beneficial to the public, the chance of our hitting on
an almost perfect distribution, when we are looking at the whole
subject from a totally different standpoint, seems rather remote. This
undesigned coincidence may have taken place, but it is one which, in
the circumstances, requires to be strictly proved. I assume that the
majority of sportsmen are not fools or bad people. How would such men
and women as they are have spent this money if the hunting-field had
been closed against them? And would this new mode of spending it be
better or worse for the public than the present one?
FACTS ABOUT THE GAME LAWS
BY J. CONNELL
“The Game Laws are the tribute paid by the over-worked and
over-taxed people of England to the Lords of the Bread--to
the predatory classes who have appropriated the land and
depopulated the hills and valleys, to increase their own
selfish pleasures. The destruction of the Game Laws is as
inevitable in the long-run as was the destruction of Slavery,
the repeal of the Corn Laws, the overthrow of an alien
Church in the sister isle; but the fight will be a stiff one
between the freemen of this country and our savage or only
semi-civilised aristocracy and plutocracy.”--ROBERT BUCHANAN.
By the common law of England and Scotland, following that of Rome, wild
animals in a state of nature are common to all mankind. A legal writer
says: “By the very nature of the case wild animals cannot be made the
subject of that absolute kind of ownership which is generally signified
by the term _property_. The substantial basis of the law of property is
physical possession, the actual power of dealing with things as we see
fit, and we can have no such power over animals in a state of nature.”
It is, for instance, impossible to confine pheasants, partridges,
grouse, etc., to a particular estate, and, taking fences as they are,
the same may be said of the great majority of hares and deer in this
country. Moreover, the individuals of each species are so much alike
that it is impossible for anyone to identify them as his property. All
legal writers without exception acknowledge that living wild creatures
are not property. Nevertheless, the Game Laws were placed on the
Statute Book to establish a proprietary right in those animals, and,
as Mr. Barclay, Sheriff of Perthshire, once told a House of Commons
Committee, they “put game, which was not property, in a higher scale
than property.” They did this by means of a system of licences for
killing and selling game, and by making trespass, which, in itself, is
only a civil offence, a criminal offence of great magnitude.
At an early stage it was discovered that a free right of hunting was
incompatible with the preservation of game in sufficient numbers to
afford enough sport to the monarch and the nobles, and accordingly a
series of laws known as the Forest Laws were enacted, by means of which
certain districts were reserved for purposes of sport to the sovereign.
The increase of population soon rendered protection necessary for areas
outside the Royal Forests if the supply of game was to be kept up, and
the result was a series of enactments known as the Game Laws. It will
thus be seen that the right of taking wild animals, which originally
belonged to the whole people, was filched from them by a selfish and
privileged class, who, we need hardly add, stole the common lands, by
means of “Enclosure Acts,” in much the same manner. It is strange but
true that, except in Ireland, and in the north of Scotland, the people
have come to acquiesce more readily in the robbery of the land than in
the robbery of the game.
The Act which is considered the first or oldest of the Game Laws became
law in the thirteenth year of Richard II., and it is interesting to
observe the reasons for placing it on the Statute Book which the
legislators of the time advanced. Said they:
“It is the practice of divers artificers, labourers, servants,
and grooms to keep greyhounds and other dogs, and on the
holidays when good Christian people be at church, hearing
Divine service, they go hunting in parks, warrens, etc., of
lords and others, to the very great destruction of the game.”
We know hundreds of districts, from Kent to Caithness, of which the
same might be written to-day, thus showing that the Game Laws have
utterly failed to obtain a moral sway over the people.
The term “game” includes hares, pheasants, partridges, grouse,
black-game, ptarmigan, and bustards. In addition to these there
are a number of animals to which one or other of the game statutes
extends protection. These are rabbits, deer, roe, woodcock, snipe,
quail, landrails, and wild duck. Although there is no property in
wild animals, it has been settled by the Courts that the right to
pursue or take game is a private privilege. In England this privilege
belongs to the occupier of the soil, in the absence of any agreement
to the contrary, and in Scotland to the owner. In the former country
agreements reserving the game to the owner are almost universal. The
occupier or the owner of the soil has the right to claim any game
killed on his land; but such is the curious state of the law that the
poacher who takes away what he kills is not guilty of theft.