HC Deb 02 March 1880 vol 251 cc160-94
MR. P. A. TAYLOR*

, in rising to move— That, in the opinion of this House, the existing Game Law Code, maintained for the purpose of preserving certain wild animals for sport, is unjust to the farmer, demoralizing to the labourer, and injurious to the whole community, and should therefore be abolished, said: Mr. Speaker, I am sure the House will acquit me of having unduly pressed the question of the Game Laws upon their attention, considering the immense importance which, in my opinion, attaches to them. I observe, somewhat to my surprise, that it is as much as nine years since I last introduced the question of their abolition. Finding on that occasion that I met with but small, and that not increasing support, while there also appeared but little desire to discuss the question at all, I felt that I should be doing less good by wearying the House by an annual Motion on the subject than by endeavouring to act on public opinion in the country, and I accordingly at once assisted in the formation of the Anti-Game Law League. I cannot claim full credit for not bringing on the question during the present Parliament, seeing that for the last two or three Sessions I have only been prevented from doing so by ill-fortune at the ballot. I am particularly glad, however, in having the opportunity of doing so now—first, because it is extremely desirable that in this last Session of an expiring Parliament the farmers, as well as other classes interested in the question, should have the opportunity, previously to the General Election, of seeing by the Division List what course is taken by their Representatives, and especially by the farmers' friends in this House—real or assumed. There is another reason why it is especially important that the question should now be discussed, seeing that for the last two or three years the shadow of agricultural distress has again come upon all parts of the country. We hear on every side of bankrupt farmers, of lowered production, and of unsatisfactory prices. We have heard recently, Sir, of numerous farms being to let, of diminished production, and increased prices; and it seems to me that it would be desirable that we should have an opportunity of discussing in this House whether this question which I have to introduce to your notice to-night, that of the Game Laws, is or is not an important element to be considered in the question of agricultural distress. I am not going to discuss agricultural distress this evening; I am only going, at present, to discuss the question of whether the Game Laws are one element in agricultural prosperity, and whether they are a potential element in the question of agricultural distress. I will afterwards proceed to discuss other questions to which this inquiry may lead.

Now, I am quite aware, so far as I have learned the views of the farmers throughout the country, and so far as they must be disposed to speak their views through the various agricultural associations, that they do not seem to make a very strong point of the Game Laws in respect of agricultural distress. Perhaps that may partly proceed from what my hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk (Mr. Clare Read) thought so important in the position of these agricultural associations, that it was quite unnecessary for farmers to form themselves into independent bodies and farmers' alliances—namely, that in this agricultural discussion they had the enormous advantage of being under the presidency and influence of the local landed proprietor. I have certainly observed that where the farmers appear to be more free from these shackles of that partizan interest, they have spoken out with considerably more force, both with regard to the Land Laws and the Game Laws. I will, however, first proceed, with the permission of the House, to give a few reasons why I believe the Game Laws are a very active element in the question of agricultural distress.

I will first call into the witness-box my hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk, who, on opposing my Motion on this subject in the year 1871, declared that— The landlord might let a farm at a high rent eat the tenant up with ground game, and ruin him, and yet he sure of every sixpence of his rent."—[3 Hansard, ccv. 1372.] I take it there is a potentiality in that statement very serious for the farmers' interests. Another rather distinguished tenant farmer, Mr. J. Shephard, who gave evidence before the Committee in 1873, declared that "landlords have it in their power to ruin a tenant simply by a little negligence in respect to game." Happy farmers! If they have a malicious landlord they can easily be ruined, and if they have a negligent one they are pretty sure to be. Again, the hon. Member for South Norfolk says— In a great number of cases of insolvent farmers in Norfolk, their ultimate ruin is attributable to the over preservation of game. It is surely hardly necessary for me to read any more extracts to show that there is a potentiality of danger to the farmers in this question of the Game Laws.

Since this question of the distress of the farmers has been raised, many organs of popular opinion throughout the country have sent Special Commissioners down to inquire into the subject; and I will read two or three lines from a letter of the Special Commissioner of The Daily News, who was sent to the county in which I now live, Sussex. He says— It is principally of hares and rabbits that the greatest complaint is made, and by many farmers these latter are classed as vermin, the damage which they commit being, where they are allowed to accumulate, almost beyond measure, and their presence being altogether incompatible with even decent cultivation. But it is not the rabbits and hares alone which are so annoying, for if the winged game do not of themselves commit any serious injury, the keeping of them harbours rats, and wherever pheasants are fed, there, or else in the very near neighbourhood, will be found an accumulation of rats. The destruction of these pests is made the more difficult by the thickness and frequency of the cover afforded by the hedgerows, and this again is a cause of further complaint, besides the fact that the sporting landlord does not deem the damage committed by rats to be worthy of acknowledgment or compensation. The indifferent cultivation of the farms in this neighbourhood I have heard generally attributed to the preservation of game. Again, a land agent, writing to The Land Agents' Record, which is, I believe, a valuable organ to all persons connected with the purchase or transfer of land, says— The relations of landlord and tenant at the present time are peculiarly interesting. Never within living memory have such a number of notices to quit been given by tenant farmers. Many landlords would prefer making largo reductions in rent to giving up the game; but if they are wise they will not retain such a source of annoyance and heart-burning in their midst. No one but those who have suffered from game and rabbits know the mischief and loss they inflict, or the angry feelings they daily arouse. There is, perhaps, some hope of this matter interesting even landowners now, because the depression among the tenants seems to have spread even to the landlords; and we hear that they have many farms which they cannot let, or for which, in order to secure tenants, they are, at any rate, obliged to accept lower rents. One great landlord, says the Commissioner of The Norfolk News, has now 5,000 acres on his hands, and in every case game is the cause. An estate of 6,500 acres, of which 4,000 are on the landlord's hands, was lately put up for sale without finding a purchaser. Its prime element of value was that "21,000 head of game had been killed on it during the year." It is now come to this—"that the country will be uncultivated, or the head of game must be greatly diminished." I take it, Sir, that I have now made my first point that the Game Laws are potentially, at any rate, a question of enormous importance in the discussion of agricultural distress.

But now, what are these Game Laws that we are met to discuss? A number of Gentlemen in this House speak of them as though they are very rational and reasonable laws, and say that if they did not exist now, we should have to do our best to create them at the earliest possible opportunity. That is not my view, and I will venture to give the House my explanation of what I understand them to be. They are laws which give a sanction to the old feudal principle of class privilege in regard to wild animals, permitting them to be used for the sport of one class. Of course, their effect is not in any way altered because the feudal is not the only principle now, and because the plutocracy has come in to share the privilege of the landed interest. I am not aware that the new landlords are likely to be any more careful of the interests of the farmers, or of the labourers, than the previous landlords were in old times. Blackstone says, and I cannot do better than quote his words— From this root (the Forest Laws) is sprung a bastard habit, known by the name of the Game Law; both alike were founded upon the same unreasonable notions of property in wild creatures, and both were productive of the same tyranny to the commons. But the matter is worse than this; these wild animals belong to the community, they belong to the people of the country. Blackstone again upon this point says— It is indisputable that the wild denizens of the field marsh and forest, known to lawyers under the name of Ferœ naturœ, are the common property of men, be their degree what it may. The wild land of the country, and the wild animals of the country, belong alike to the whole of the community, and if legislated for, can only be legislated for in the interests of the whole of the community. The peasant has just as much right as the Duke to hunt and kill and eat the wild animals of the country, always provided he does no damage to the land on which they are killed.

But, then, this leads me to a more serious charge; and I declare that, in my opinion, I do not in the least exaggerate when I say that the Game Laws are a permanent statutory violation of the Common Law of the land, of common justice, and of common honesty. They enable the landlord to say to the farmer—"There is land which I let you at a certain rent under certain covenants; but between the lines you must read this—that when you have your stock, your cattle, your bullocks, and your sheep, or whatever else you may choose, on the land—that then another stock is to come upon it in indefinite quantities at my pleasure, and the hares and rabbits, vermin to the farmers, shall be placed on the land as I choose; and that there shall be only this peculiarity in this kind of property—that you shall pay for them while they remain mine." The landlord says to the labourer—much as other game preservers said 800 years ago when they made the New Forest—"Our pleasure is sport, cost what it may to the country; and we will retain our amusement by the power we have in the Legislature."

What some landlords think of these laws I will show by a very few words from a landowner who is not ashamed to care for his peasantry—a statesman who is not ashamed to denounce abuses. The Marquess of Ailesbury, speaking at the Savernake rent audit recently, said— The peasant comes home to his cottage, and there is hardly enough to make a dinner for his wife and children; over the next hedge are a lot of half-tamed pheasants, and the temptation is too much for the hungry man, and he commits an offence which those wicked laws constitute a crime, for which he is to be sent to prison. How can any just man attempt to defend such laws? He did not often sit on a bench of magistrates; but whenever he had done so, and poaching cases had come before him, he had always treated them with the utmost leniency possible, because he felt the glaring injustice of the laws he was compelled to administer. But this is approaching a word which is very dreadful under ordinary circumstances, and which, when it comes of the people, and is used of the property of the rich, goes under the ugly name of confiscation. You may say, how can it be confiscation when it is according to law? But there may be such a thing as legal confiscation.

Let me give an illustration. There are land reformers going about the country, one of whose proposals, and one which is approved by large numbers of the population, is that the people should resume the land—that there should be no absolute fee-simple property in land. I say, if that measure were carried into effect without compensation to the landowners, that such an act of injustice and confiscation would be committed as was scarcely ever before known in the history of the world. But I will not admit that it is better when the property of the poor is taken for the benefit of the rich. It is then Socialism turned topsy-turvy, and not improved by the process. What is the difference? The Socialist would, by artificial legislation, take from the rich for the supposed benefit of the poor. Your Game Law system, under equally artificial legislation, takes from the poor for the pleasure and amusement of the rich. These Game Laws that we maintain so snugly have, indeed, nothing like them in the civilized world. France and Germany have equalled, if not surpassed, us, in the infamy of their Game Laws; but the Revolution of 1789 put a stop to them in France, and the Revolution of 1848 ended them in Germany.

I know it is said that there are Game Laws all over the world, and the Reports of certain Consuls and Envoys have been published, in order to show that to be the fact; but I maintain that anyone who reads those Reports fairly will see that there is none of them to compare in severity or atrocity with the Game Laws in existence in this country. Recollect that many elements must be taken into consideration; and I say, taking all those things into account, there is not a country in the world disgraced by a Game Law system such as ours. I shall be told there is a Game Law in America. My hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk, my hon. Friend the Member for South Leicestershire (Mr. Pell), have come back from that country, with a wondrous story that Republican America has a Game Law system. I have heard my hon. Friends spoken of for this assertion as "the Innocents Abroad." I do not think this is quite a true joke, and I think they rely too much on our innocence at home. I suppose my hon. Friends have got a catalogue raisonné of the dreadful deeds done there in America. But have they found there such a thing as farmers imprisoned and subjected to hard labour for snaring a rabbit outside their own hedges, or a list of criminals to compare with the 10,659 criminals made in one year by our Game Laws here? It is not a very easy thing to speak of a Game Law system in America, where every State makes its own laws; but, nevertheless, bold as it seems, I will challenge my hon. Friends, and I will assert that there is no Game Law from one end of the United States to another, in the sense in which we use the term, or in which it has any meaning at all. It is quite true that the Americans preserve all the wild animals of the country as we do, quite apart from our Game Laws; that they have laws and systems by which they protect the whole ferœ naturœ of the country; and that they are patriotic enough to care for picturesqueness. and for scientific discovery. But that is not a Game Law. It is true they preserve blackbirds, sparrows, and other birds; but that is not a Game Law either. When the late lamented Mr. Motley was here from America as their Minister he took great interest in this question; and I got a letter from him, four lines of which I will read, with the permission of the House. After describing their laws with regard to wild animals, he says— Practically, however, this legislation is in the interest, not of an aristocratic class—for there is none in the United States—but of the farmers and labourers, who own the land, and who do not object to its being shot over, except when the trespasser, by so doing, damages growing or standing crops. Our Game Laws are not aristocratic, but democratic or scientific. I can tell my hon. Friend and hon. Gentlemen opposite that amongst the things which astonish educated Americans when they come here—for many of them have told me so themselves—is the theory and practice of our Game Laws. They cannot understand that there should be a class in England that seeks to maintain them, and, worse still, a population that will endure them. That to them is one of the most astounding things they meet anywhere.

As regards the question of the extent of the traffic in game, I had a curious illustration in a circular sent me the other day. It appears that large profits are made by the letting of land for game, and this circular comes from a shooting agency in Fleet Street. I am told that there are others, and that this gentleman is by no means one of the largest, yet he has for patrons two Dukes, six Earls, four Lords, ten Baronets, plenty of esquires—and all Scotch proprietors. The shooting he offers—and he is by no means the largest agent—amounts to nearly 1,000,000 square acres sacrificed to game. Some of the conditions of which he speaks in regard to the various properties are instructive and amusing. Mr. So and so will send his list post free to a carefully-selected list of gentlemen, numbering several thousands, and embracing most of the aristocracy, the Members of the House of Commons, and the leading professional and mercantile men over the Kingdom. These are the notes in which he describes the various properties he has to let:— (No. 1) "Securely fenced off from sheep." (No. 2) "Facilities would be afforded by the proprietor for gradually removing the present sheep stock." (No. 3) "Episcopal church on the property, where a clergyman generally officiates—during the sporting months." (No. 4) "The forest is amply stocked with deer, having been cleared of sheep for 40 years. It is stipulated that no sheep shall be kept on the ground by the lessee. The proprietor reserves power to destroy hares and rabbits for the protection of his young plantations. [Laughter.] Yes, of course, he would destroy the hares and rabbits to protect his young plantations. If he were as ready to destroy them to protect the crops of his farmers, hon. Gentlemen opposite would have more right to cheer. (No. 5) "The lands, as a whole, would form an excellent deer forest, being in the immediate neighbourhood of lower cleared land. Oh, happy farmers! who enjoy the lower cleared lands where this deer forest is to be created. (No. 6) "No keepers required, as estate is surrounded by carefully preserved lands. Does it not strike hon. Members that this is one of the most remarkable illustrations that could possibly be made by the statement that in politics, as in other things, extremes meet?

Here we have, in this little island of ours, from the effects of what you may call over-civilization, from the enormous accumulation of wealth, from our manufactures, from the monopoly of land, and from various other things, precisely those evils re-produced that hitherto have only been supposed to exist in the wildest and most desolate regions, and amongst the most savage barbarians. When we see accounts of the Red Indian driven back by the Anglo-Saxon in America—back from the lands that his forefathers owned, back and still farther back—we pity him, for it is all that we can do. We recognize, as a fatality of history, that the savage must pass away before the Anglo-Saxon and civilization. Agriculture has to be spread; cities have to be founded; arts and sciences follow in their wake; and how can the Red Indian live with them? He requires thousands and tens of thousands of acres of prairie for his buffaloes to roam; he needs a trackless forest for the wild animals on which he lives, and by whose skin he is clothed; he requires for his own wants what would provide for 10,000 men, and so he must pass from the world. But what shall we say, when we come to our own little island swarming with humanity as ants swarm in an ant hill, and find that here we have a system which is incompatible with the existence of the Red Indian in America actually growing up on our own shores? Estates, parishes, divisions—yes, even counties in Scotland—are being sacrificed to this passion. These game-preserving magnates are as much out of their place—nay, far more out of it—than the Red Indian in the back woods of America. They are in a false position, and, for the sake of themselves and their country, the sooner they come out of it the better, for the people will not long permit such an anomaly—such an injustice—even though wooed by the siren strain of that well-known couplet, which I will venture slightly to paraphrase, and say— Let wealth and learning, laws and commerce, die, But leave us still our game monopoly. Now, Sir, as to the question, of the damage done to the farmers, it is not, of course, for me to say what it may be, for I am no agriculturist; but I have obtained from agricultural authorities what they think it to be, and it appears from their statement that the damage is so enormous as to be positively incalculable. Mr. Wright, a valuer in the county of which I have the honour to represent the chief town—Leicestershire—says that he allowed between £800 and £900 to one tenant, and that on some parts of the land the allowance was £12 to £13 an acre. Mr. Hewitt, at the Sussex Chamber of Agriculture, said, as regards rabbits, that— Last year he made a valuation of a certain farm of the damage done by rabbits. He put it down, and was confirmed in his opinion by others, at £25 per day. These rabbits entirely destroyed the crops, and the farmer had to plough up his fields. With regard to the damage done to agriculture by hares, the Agricultural Commissioner of The Daily News in Lincolnshire says— Game depredation means that anywhere in the neighbourhood of coverts you get three quarters of barley per acre instead of five. Your wheats are damaged by hares and rabbits in a way which makes the estimation of damage rather difficult. Hiding past a crop you might think it level and upstanding; but go into it, and you find innumerable tracks leading to plots which are oaten down and thus cleared as playgrounds. Rabbits nibble the roots and stems of young quick, and destroy scores of yards together of good hedgerows, in addition to which the keepers ruin the hedges in innumerable places in digging after the ferrets when catching rabbits. Now, my hon. Friends the Members for South Norfolk and South Leicestershire must be able to correct me if I am wrong in all this; and if I am not, I want to know what alternative they have to propose? The Agricultural Commissioner of The Daily News says, again— I heard of one case in which a field of turnips, lying far away from any other roots, was wholly consumed by flocks of hares, insomuch that the tenant, in an ironical mood, wrote this note to the landlord:—'Please send a load of turnips or the hares will starve.' At a lecture given in Sussex, at the Botley Farmers' Club, on "Hindrances to Agricultural Progress," one gentleman said— There can be no doubt that the loss by game of agricultural produce, irrespective of impediments to the cultivation, is enormous. It is not disputed by practical men that at present only one farm in five can be rented free of the game, and, probably, this freedom applies only to one-eighth of the leased land in the Kingdom. But people say that, so far as the farmer is concerned, he has compensation if he can prove damage. Well, in the first place, I must premise that this is not simply a question between the landlord and the farmer. Even supposing that the farmer can be satisfied with the compensation which he receives, the country and the labourer would still remain to be reckoned with. But everybody who has ever studied the matter knows for a fact that compensation to the farmer for loss by game is simply a sham. Mr. Gray, of Dilston, declared that he never knew a farmer get half what he was entitled to; and a farmer must be a very prosperous man if he can boar to venture into the Law Courts against his landlord. Here is what happened to one of them. The owner of the estate lived far away, and the shooting got into the hands of a lot of lawyers, who soon had it filled with ground game. In one case a tenant was noted for his trim, well-kept hedges—they were like garden fences. These were all pulled up by the game preservers, and stuck into the ground to prevent poaching by nets. Sheep grazing in the field got the thorns fast in their wool, and they became almost wild with the annoyance. The farmer, too, was almost wild with the damage done to his growing crops. He got the damage valued, and sued the parties, getting a satisfactory verdict; but the lawyers took the case to a higher and more expensive Court, and there the original verdict was reversed. The farmer was condemned in all costs, and he was financially ruined, finishing all up by taking poison. [Laughter.] I am very sorry that the fact of a farmer being driven to suicide by these Game Laws should be a matter for laughter amongst hon. Gentlemen on the opposite Benches, who, I thought, always prided themselves on being the farmers' friends.

But then we are told that this can be dealt with by freedom of contract. I have already pointed out that even if the farmers were satisfied it does not follow that the country should be; but I may also say that there are various kinds of freedom of contract, and there are various ways of acquiescence in a particular course. The freedom of contract allowed to the farmer is of much the same kind as the freedom allowed to the convict when the hangman taps him on the shoulder and points the way to the gallows. He does not resist; he says not a word, and he goes quietly because he knows his case is settled. Be it remembered there is no class in the country whose position is more hopeless than that of the farmer. A trader can take his capital and invest it in some other business; but the farmer knows no other trade than that to which he has been brought up, and he must put up with any injustice or be turned out of his land, and left to his only other remedy—that of emigration. A most amusing illustration of the idea that farmers are free to contract is shown by the condition of the Scotch and the English Game Laws. Here, if a lease is silent respecting game, the property in it resides in the occupier; in Scotland, if there is no clause in the lease, it resides in the landlord, and nobody cares twopence whether it is the one or the other, because the landlord has only to nod or wink, and that is just as good as a clause in the lease. If the law gives him the game he keeps it, and if it does not he takes it. The noble Lord the Member for Haddingtonshire (Lord Elcho), from the line of examination which he pursued before the Committee, is evidently of opinion that the landlord should get all he can for his property, and that if he can get more money by growing deer than by growing corn or sheep he is perfectly free to do so. That is a novel way of asking a question often asked before—"Am I not entitled to do what I like with my own?" It is scarcely worth while asking that question now. But the question may be answered in one of two ways. First, you may not do what you like with your own; or, secondly, you may do what you like with your own; but your land is not the sort of property with which you can do as you like. Then we are told continually that we are interfering with the sentimental relation between landlord and tenant, and disturbing that blessed harmony which is supposed to exist between the two. Those who talk in that sort of way must be rather surprised at the number of cases in which there have been meetings of farmers to express sympathy and to give testimonials to evicted farmers. I take it that the case of Mr. Hope, of Fenton Barns, is not forgotten in the farming world; and I may add to that two little illustrations which I have in my notes. Mr. Claydon, an Essex farmer, holding 1,000 acres, whose family had been 70 years on the farm, was evicted because he would not submit to a clause preventing him from shooting rabbits, or catching rats in banks. Mr. Clark, a tenant farmer in Norfolk, said at his auction— My fathers have resided here nearly 100 years. I leave "because, in my landlord's own words, I have been disposed to discuss the question of game. I trust that the time is fast approaching when the tenant farmers will support each other in this matter. Now, I call upon my hon. Friends the Members for South Norfolk and South Leicestershire to stand forward as the champions of that cause.

I have now dealt with the way in which these laws affect the farmers—next let me say a few words as to the labourers. I have endeavoured to divide what I have to say into various portions, so as to show how these laws affect various classes in the community; but I am quite aware that it is very difficult to make that division a perfect one, because these divisions must necessarily run into each other. That which is injurious to the farmer cannot be beneficial to the community or to the labourer. Still, I make this division for convenience, and I will repeat myself as little as possible. Now, with regard to the labourer, what strikes one first, as the right hon. Member for Birmingham (Mr. Bright) said some time ago, is that these Game Laws confine his right in his native land to the highways. He and his family and his children can no longer walk by the woods, or pick the wild flowers, or find birds' nests. If a man goes on the land he is accused of poaching, and if women or children venture there they disturb the game. As Mr. Joseph Arch, that eloquent defender of his class, has said— These laws destroy the produce of the labourers' gardens, and make the very existence of small freeholds an impossibility to the labourer, because these little oases are disgusting to the landlord. No more is it open to the labourer or his family to wander by the brook or in the glen in search of flowers, blackberries, or birds' nests—the man himself is charged with poaching, and his family, at least, disturb the game. But, above all, the damage done to the labourer is that these laws are wholesale manufacturers of crime. Upwards of 10,000 criminals suffered last year under the laws. Nothing more disastrous can be done to the community or to humanity than to make people disrespect the law, by setting the law to punish, as a crime, that which their conscience does not tell them is a sin. They may, indeed, go innocently into the gaol the first time; but facilis descensus averni, and having been there once they are pretty sure to go there again. "Oh," I have heard gentlemen say, "poachers, scoundrels, thieves; if they don't take our game, they would take our poultry or something still more valuable." ["Hear, hear!"] I am very sorry to hear that cheer, because the assertion is one utterly without foundation. There is no class in the country at the present time which regards poaching as a crime, any more than smugglers in the old days of the Revenue Laws regarded smuggling as a crime. How could it be regarded as a crime? It would be a disgrace to the country gentlemen if it were, because it is an offence which they are continually committing themselves. Mr. Young, the Secretary to the Board of Excise, said in his testimony before the Committee—"A great many gentlemen shoot all the year without taking out a licence." I had also a list sent me of gentlemen who had shot without a licence. What does a country gentleman do if he wishes to have an enormous number of pheasants? He obtains them from somebody—I will not say he steals them, because that would be to accuse him of a crime—but I will say he procures them. Lord Stradbroke, writing to The Times two or three years ago, said— Only yesterday a box containing pheasants' eggs was sent from a station in East Suffolk addressed to the gamekeeper of a noble Earl in Scotland, and I can prove that such boxes are continually sent by a notorious receiver to different places in England. Now, I say it would be a libel on the country gentlemen of England who are addicted to this practice if I did not maintain that they themselves do not think poaching a crime. The other day a chairman of a bench of magistrates was fined for a breach of the Game Laws for killing pheasants three weeks before they were in season. It may be asked, was there not a great outcry of public opinion? There was. But the public opinion was not against him for violating the Game Laws which he was there to administer—and, I am told, was wont to administer with something more than usual severity—his neighbours were angry that he should do so mean a thing as to shoot before the time pheasants, which had not been turned into a preserve and slightly tinged with wildness. The Chairman of the Board of Conservators, in Wales, writes— My experience is that everyone, from the highest to the lowest, has a sympathy with the poacher, and willingly purchases without asking questions. I could tell you of clergymen, medical men, leading solicitors, in a large way of business, trades people, and others who all supply themselves from this source. Is it not rather mean, with evidence such as that before us, to brand the lowest class of poachers with being criminals and thieves? I think it is hardly worthy of gentlemen.

The next thing to which I wish to call your attention is the astonishing violence with which these laws are maintained. Shakespeare tells us that "things bad begun make strong themselves by ill." The wonder is the country should endure the brutal violence with which these laws are carried out. I will give one or two instances. At Bridlington Petty Sessions two poachers were charged with night poaching; and Green, a game watcher, was charged with shooting one of them. Stanion, a keeper, called to Appleby, a poacher, to stop, or he would warm him. He then ordered Green to fire, and Green took deliberate aim at Appleby, who dropped down. He was examined by Dr. Alison, who found that he had 48 gunshots lodged in his thigh, back, and the right side of his head. That is hardly the way in which the law should be administered in a civilized country—to say nothing of a Christian country. Again, a head-keeper was watching with his under-keeper and two other men in a wood. A couple of mock pheasants had been placed in a tree, and the keepers were near the spot. About half-past in the morning they saw several men coming up the ride, who went towards the tree where the mock pheasants had been placed, and directly afterwards shots were fired. Now, a great deal has been said against England as a nation of shopkeepers; but this is surely much worse than mere shopkeeping. If a tradesman hung up pewter spoons made to imitate silver ones, and, when a thief came to steal them, he fired at him, he would surely be hung if the man so shot died of his injuries. Here is a case from Mildenhall, in Suffolk. On the men seeing the keeper they ran off. He then let loose an immense mastiff, 22 inches high, partially muzzled, which succeeded in catching Mutum, and pulled him down. Whilst Mutum was defending himself from the attack of this dog, which Wharfe, the keeper, admitted was a ferocious one, he was struck on the head, stunned, and secured. Prisoners said they had both been bitten by the dog, and Mutum complained of being severely struck by Wharfe whilst trying to keep the dog off. The Bench, in consideration of the severe punishment they had received from the keepers, mitigated the punishment to two months' imprisonment, and sureties for 12 months. We have all heard, I suppose, of the cases in Wales last year, which really, in some parts of the country, almost amounted to civil war on a small scale. There was a fight between the keepers and the poachers, and the latter barricaded themselves in a stable and were besieged. A Correspondent of The Times sends an interesting incident of what occurred in Barbadoes during the administration of Mr. Pope Hennessey. In speaking of that gentleman I should like, in passing, to say how much individually I respect him, because, wherever he may be, he seems to carry equal justice and humanity to the people over whom he is placed. The Times Correspondent writes— I have heard but of one complaint against the troops. It was that of a planter who declared that the soldiers had misbehaved themselves, because, though his rabbits and pigeons had been stolen, they had not shot a single nigger. That unfortunate planter was in a wrong position. He should not have been a planter in Barbadoes, but a landlord in England. God knows we show little respect in shooting our niggers when after rabbits or pheasants—so little, indeed, that Canon Kingsley, no hater of the aristocracy or true sport, was stung into writing, in his well-known ballad of the "Poacher's Widow," what hon. Gentlemen opposite may, perhaps, deem a severe condemnation— There's blood on your new foreign shrubs, squire; There's blood on your pointer's feet. There's blood on the game you sell, squire, And there's blood on the game you oat. I say, again, that there is nothing like the Game Laws in any country in the world for severity or atrocity. I will go further, and say there is no other portion of our criminal jurisdiction equalled in the partiality, harshness, and absolute illegality with which they are administered. At the South Eastern Circuit, at Lewes, before the Lord Chief Justice, it appeared that when the keepers went out to watch they took with them a large dog to hunt poachers, which ran after them, and attempted to bite one of them. It has always been thought that the use of dogs for hunting men was confined to the interior of Jamaica; but we now find that we have improved on all these things. The Lord Chief Justice then observed that the use of a dog for such a purpose was most improper, and if keepers were proved to have allowed a savage dog to worry a man, although he might be a poacher, they would get themselves into serious trouble. Only, unhappily, it appears that these keepers never do get themselves into serious trouble. Later on it appeared that after a scuffle between the keepers and three men who were trespassing in search of game, the latter ran off, followed by the keepers, and one of the latter knocked a poacher down who was running away. The Lord Chief Justice again interfered, and told the keeper he had no right whatever to do that. He had no doubt that the stick used was not a light one, and he might have killed the man. If he had, his offence would at least have been manslaughter, and possibly something even more serious. He advised the keepers to be careful in future, and not to repeat such acts of violence. ["Hear, hear!"] Why this squeamishness on the part of hon. Gentlemen opposite? Surely their expression of feeling is out of place. Do they deny that they send out bands of armed watchers to arrest and fight the poachers, and if they do, that they admit all that has here been said? Here is another case, tried only last month at Liverpool, before Lord Coleridge. The poacher ran away. He usually does run away; and, indeed, if he can get off, he of course prefers to do so. The gamekeeper fired at him, and hit him in the back; another shot was then fired, but he could not say whether it hit him or not. He went into the wood and became insensible, and lay there until he was found some time after by the keepers. After he recovered he was brought up, and imprisoned for 14 days for poaching. All honour to Lord Justice Coleridge, who, in sentencing the gamekeeper who thus wounded the poacher, said that although poachers were engaged in a pursuit that was a violation of the law their lives must be protected, and sentenced the gamekeeper to 12 months' hard labour. That surely was not a great punishment for a deliberate attempt to murder. If that poacher had died, I know no reason why that man should not have been put in the dock and tried for murder, and why his employer should not have stood by his side as an accessory to the murder before the fact. In truth, one great advantage of the abolition of the Game Laws would be that the door which opens on the gallows would no longer be slammed in the face of such unquestionable deserts. The Marquess of Ailesbury, speaking of this sort of dealing with poachers, said that through these iniquitous laws four persons had lost their lives in that neighbourhood—two policemen murdered, and two men were hanged for the murder. He said to his brother— Thank God it was not on our estate; how could we ever have justified ourselves in our own eyes again had our game preserving-brought about such a horrible catastrophe? Next, as to my second charge against the Game Laws—the enormous and prodigious penalties by which they are enforced. I will not trouble the House with many illustrations; but I will just quote this case. An old man named Harrison was charged at the Evesham Petty Sessions with having shot at a rabbit near his allotment ground. That was surely not a very severe offence, and the defendant was strongly recommended to mercy by the complainant, on the ground that he had served his country as a soldier with credit. For this offence the poor old man was sentenced to pay 40s. and costs, and, in default of payment, was sentenced to two months' hard labour in Worcester Gaol. I may mention, for the comfort of hon. Gentlemen opposite, that the fine was afterwards paid, and the man released. In another case, reported by The Scotsman, where the defendant, a farm servant, was convicted of what the Sheriff termed merely a "technical offence," he was fined Is. and ordered to pay £5 expenses. In another, at Epsom, a defendant who pleaded guilty to having been on land in search of rabbits, was sentenced to three weeks' hard labour, personal security for £10, two sureties £5 each, or in default six months' imprisonment. Now, I may appeal to the House whether there is any portion of our criminal jurisdiction whatever where offences are punished with such tremendous severity?

I have charged that the Game Laws are administered with great partiality. That needs no proof. Of course they are partially administered, because they are administered by the very class who have an interest in the laws they maintain. I have not a word to say against the country gentlemen. They are Englishmen, no better and no worse than their fellows, put in a thoroughly false position; and probably do no worse and no better than any other class in an equally false position would do. Who would consent, in an issue between employer and workmen, to allow the jury to be composed altogether of masters or of tradesmen? The thing is ridiculous. The point is, indeed, very well put by The Saturday Review, when it says— The magistrate who convicts a thief acts in the interest of every man in the court. The magistrate who convicts a poacher commonly acts in the interest of nobody but those on the bench. The number of magistrates who would consciously pervert the law to convict a poacher is probably very small; but the number of magistrates who unconsciously carry to the bench the passions of the preserve is very large. Now, with respect to the question of general damage, I do not know what specific evidence I can bring. I should say that the curse of sterility is on these laws. If he is blessed who makes two blades of corn grow where only only one grew before, then he who only allows two to grow where there were previously three, is * *—well, he is the other thing. I will not attempt to calculate the damage. I have hoard it put at £10,000,000. I have heard it put at £50,000,000, and at a great deal more. It is, in fact, simply incalculable, varying greatly with the season, the locality, and above all, with the caprice of the landlord. My right hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich (Mr. Gladstone), in writing to a gentleman on another subject, said— I look upon an augmentation of the supply of animal food, in whatever way it can best be effected, as the most important, perhaps, of all the questions of purely material interest which now press themselves on public attention. In view of that statement, I venture to ask my right hon. Friend whether the abolition of the Game Laws has not now become one of the most important of all the questions of purely material interest that now press themselves on public attention? But when we are told by Mr. Caird that we consume annually £107,000,000 of imported agricultural produce every year, what possible excuse can there be for turning loose these hares and rabbits which consume such enormous quantities of its food? My hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk (Mr. Clare Read) declared some years ago that 40,000 more sheep could be easily kept in Norfolk if hares and rabbits were only kept within reasonable bounds.

Another reason which I would quote beside the positive injury done to the farmer, and the injury to every class of the community, is the fact that the Game Law system is utterly incompatible with high farming. It is obvious it must be so, and the larger the crop the greater the power of vermin to damage it. I say there can be no doubt that enter-prizing farmers will hardly care to invest much in a farm where a large head of game is preserved. ["Oh, oh!"] Well, if hon. Gentlemen want my authority I will mention that Mr. Pusey said before the Committee of 1846— I have seldom had less on my hands than 2,000 acres, and I have inclosed 4,000 acres of waste. I found the two occupations of a game preserver and an improver of land by planting and farming perfectly incompatible. Again, he says, as a sort of illustration of the damage done by game— I allowed my gamekeeper to have four acres of land near the covers rent free; but he was obliged to give it up, the game injured him so much. Actually a little spot of land round these covers, given to a man rent free, was absolutely valueless. Now my hon. Friend the Member for South Leicestershire (Mr. Pell) said, on the last occasion when this matter was debated in this House, that all this talk was very well before the Corn Laws were repealed, but that now they were repealed, and we had the power of getting free corn from all parts of the world, it was ridiculous to talk about the damage to the community by this loss. That is so bad an argument that I hardly know how to answer it; but I will try to do so by venturing on an illustration. You tie a man's two arms behind his back and turn him out. He rebels, protests, objects, and, as a matter of great favour, you cut one arm free. Growing bolder by this concession, he asks to have the other freed, and then you say—"Ungrateful scoundrel, did not I free one arm, and here you have the impudence to ask for the other?" Please God we will free both arms before long!

There is one other point to which I should wish briefly to allude—the utter disturbance of all the usual processes of nature by your system of Game Laws. In order to keep up your game, you destroy all kinds of predatory birds and animals; and you not only so lose great pictures queness in the country, and destroy scientific interest, but you do positive injury to the farmer through the increase of things which these creatures would naturally prey upon. While you destroy hawks, weasels, and owls, the farmer is eaten up by pigeons, rats, &c. No one knows more about this matter than the Rev. F. O. Morris, and he writes— Six stacks of corn were thrashed out on one day and one the following, and no less than six stone of mice were destroyed on the occasion, besides the number killed by dogs—in all some 2,000 killed in two days or less, on a portion only of the stacks at one farmstead. The rats feed in the winter on the corn put down in the woods for the pheasants, and increase and multiply to a ruinous extent. Their natural enemies—the weasels, stoats, owls, kestrels, and other hawks—are most cruelly destroyed by pole traps, and others set on the ground. As for the damage done by hares and rabbits to growing-crops in fields adjoining woods, it is most grievous. Why, the fact is, in any other country than ours, did such a nuisance affecting the life and property of the nation exist, we should put a price upon the head of these vermin and destroy them. In the next paragraph will hon. Members please read for "tigers" the word "hares." Dr. Hunter, the Director General of Statistics to the Government of India, states that the ravages of tigers form one of the obstacles to the extension of civilization. Already the Indian Government offers large premiums for the destruction of wild animals; and those Nawabs and Rajahs who still pride themselves upon retaining preserves of savage beasts for hunting purposes ought to subordinate the gratification of their tastes to the public welfare. In Australia they are nearly devoured by rabbits, and accordingly the Legislature has interfered and passed a Rabbit Suppression Bill. They have authorized the common "Shire Councils" to levy a rate of 1d. per acre to defray the expense of killing them. All brushwood fences in a rabbit district are to be burnt down, at the option of the Inspectors; and anyone turning rabbits loose is liable to a fine of £10 for each offence.

Now, Sir, I may be asked why I go in for so extreme a measure?—why I do not attempt something moderate, which I should have a chance of carrying? My answer in the first place is, that no modification of the Game Laws can effect any good purpose, for this precise reason—that all the evils that I have described arise from the prodigious head of "game," and nothing but a destruction of a large part of this enormous amount of game can effect the purposes desired. My Motion is also moderate in the sense that it would destroy two extremes—it would put down the battue system, and would take away all employment from the poacher. Now, I am not alone in this opinion. Lord Hatherley stated— I do not believe that the great grievance arising from the Game Laws can be relieved by any palliations, and therefore they must be entirely got rid of. And my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Greene)—to whose genial criticism I should have been very happy to be subject this even- ing—said on the last occasion I brought this subject forward— That there was no step between the maintenance of the Game Laws and the proposals on the subject by the hon. Member for Leicester. Either it was right that game should be preserved or it was wrong. If it was wrong, the system should be attacked. Now I know it is the fashion to attempt to frighten farmers by talking about the dangers of trespass; but the dangers of trespass have nothing to do with the matter. I am not now discussing the trespass laws—they may or they may not be sufficiently stringent—but this I know—that if the Acts which I propose to abolish were done away with there would be less temptation to trespass than there is now—as the farmers will very quickly see when they have no landlords to preside over their deliberations. For instance, Mr. Hewitt said at the Sussex Chamber of Agriculture— Lord Malmesbury said if the Game Laws were abolished, the fact would necessitate a severe trespass law, and increase the rural constabulary by some 10,000 or 15,000 men. ["Oh, oh!"] He was glad to hear that significant cry, for he believed there was not a tenant farmer in the hall who was so insane as to put any credence in the reckless statement of Lord Malmesbury. As farmers they knew that if the temptations to poach were removed that crime would gradually decrease. I will also quote on this point the testimony of another gentleman, who, with the exception of my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham (Mr. John Bright) has done more than anyone against these atrocious laws—the late Mr. Welford. He said— No trespasses other than game trespasses are ever committed in England which the law does not effectually prevent or punish. But a trespass law for the purpose of protecting game—or making privileged certain kinds of wild creatures—is a demand to which no tolerance should be given. There is nothing that would do more to sweeten the breath of rural society, and pave the way for goodwill and right feeling amongst all classes in our agricultural districts, than the repeal of the Game Laws. Now, the impossibility of dealing in a small way with these Game Laws is also fully illustrated by the fact that, after all the inquiries and Committees that we have had, nothing has been done. The fact that I have alluded to, of the impossibility of really diminishing the evils of the Game Laws by so-called moderate reforms of them, perhaps accounts for the fact that so little has been done to carry out the recommendations adopted in the Reports of either of the Committees of 1846 and 1873, and that little has been practically useless. My hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgowshire (Mr. M'Lagan) is to be complimented upon the zeal and energy with which he carried through his Game Laws Amendment (Scotland) Act. I am sure he will agree with me that, useful as, no doubt, his Act will be, he only touched the fringe of the subject, for it really only tended to give a little compensation to farmers and to tenants, and transferred the tribunal from the justices to the sheriffs.

In regard to the recommendations of the Committees to which I have alluded I will just mention the abolition of cumulative penalties. This was recommended in both Reports, but remains untouched. Regarding rabbits as vermin, as recommended in the Report of 1873, nothing has been done. The abominable system under which the informer gets half the penalty—a gross injustice to the accused, and a terrible temptation to the gamekeeper—this, too, was recommended to be altered by both Committees, but remains untouched. But finally, if the House will allow me, I will give it the most extraordinary illustration of the impossibility of obtaining any reform of the Game Laws that can possibly be imagined. The House is already aware that the punishment for night poaching is of the most severe and atrocious character. For poaching at night without threatening violence a man may be sentenced to 14 years' penal servitude; and for just taking a rabbit at night, with no intention of violence at all, the penalty is seven years' penal servitude. The first Committee, in 1846, recommended that that atrocious punishment should be modified. In the Report of the Committee of 1873, drawn up by a late Colleague of the Government (Mr. Ward Hunt), a similar recommendation was passed. No notice was taken of it in this House. There was a curious little incident showing the feeling in regard to the Game Laws which took place last year. A Scotch farmer was subjected to an atrocious punishment for trying to snare a hare just outside his own hedge. A Scotch Member brought up a question on the subject; and the Secretary of State for the Home Department said he was prepared to bring in a Bill to modify that law. He did bring in a Bill, declaring that when there was no evidence whatever that violence was committed or was intended, that the punishment for night poaching should be reduced to what it would have been if the offence had been committed in the day time. I at once rose and suggested to the right hon. Gentleman that, however desirable it might be thus to assist the Scotch farmers, the English farmers had every right to the same privilege, and that he surely would not dream of passing a Bill for Scotland which did not extend to England. After some consultation, the Lord Advocate frankly accepted that alteration, and promised if I would withdraw my opposition to the second reading that he would pledge himself to bring in a Bill extending the change to Great Britain. I was, unfortunately, ill at that period, and had no opportunity of watching exactly how the matter went; but I know, in the first place, that this fairly moderate piece of legislation was altered down to absolute nothingness and meaninglessness. It was provided, in the first place, that the poacher must be alone, and. that he must have no nets with him; so that it amounted to this—that if he proved he was not a poacher he should only be punished as if he had been caught in the day time. But that change was too strong for the Government Bench, and the Bill was officially burked at 7 o'clock in the morning one day in August. No doubt it may be said when the Government saw it had been reduced by their Friends to so simple a matter they resolved to put it on one side, and to deal with the matter in the Criminal Code Bill. But on examining that Bill I find in it the same atrocious clause, and it is still proposed that a man should be liable to seven years' transportation for taking a rabbit. "While that clause remains in that Bill I promise it my most unmitigated opposition; and I will stop short of nothing but that never-to-be-mentioned horror of having my humble name mentioned by you, Sir. In fact, the only alteration in the law of late years has been an alteration of the most aggravating severity; and that is the Act of 1862, called the Poaching Prevention Act. This Act did a great deal towards making game property, not so far as it turned policemen into game preservers, and actually disregarded a vital principle in our Constitution that a man shall be deemed innocent until he is proved guilty. At present any poor labourer wandering along the road with a hag on his back may be stopped by any scoundrel gamekeeper, who can claim the right to search him in order to see whether he has or has not game upon him. The Commissioner of The Norfolk News said— As I have seen and heard much of the evil of game preserving, I will add one or two facts of which I was reminded by my informant in Suffolk, who has had large experience in game districts. He ascribed much evil to the Poaching Prevention Act, by which policemen were turned into gamekeepers, paid by the county and the State. This Act has so operated that while game preserving is as rampant as ever gamekeepers are less and less in request, their places being supplied by policemen. He assured me that a little while ago in The Field newspaper he observed 60 advertisements by gamekeepers out of situations, and only two by gentlemen requiring gamekeepers. Probably the audacity of class legislation was never manifested in a more distinct manner than in this case, when, having first confiscated the property of the people in the wild animals of the country, the country gentlemen then forced the people to pay for the preservation of the stolen property.

Two propositions have been made under which the present Game Laws might be abolished, to make game property, or to pass a stringent Trespass Law. To pass a Trespass Bill is simply to re-produce the Game Laws in another form; while to make game property is to increase the evil, and to make it more flagrant by making the confiscation of the property of the people absolute and certain. A stringent trespass law—why, the Night Poaching Act is a stringent Trespass Law. If you want to reduce the evil, you must reduce the head of game. If you pass a stringent Trespass Law which does not allow the head, of game to be destroyed, you will simply have made a nominal change. A much more valuable change suggested is to remove ground game from the protection of the Act, and to leave only winged game under its protection. I cannot accept the principle that ground game is the only one which does damage; immense harm is done by winged game also. The Bishop of Manchester writes:—"Ground game does more hurt to the farmer; winged game does more hurt to the peasantry." I apprehend also that of the 10,000 men convicted annually, far more are victims to pheasants than to hares. Mr. Hammerton, of the Warwickshire Farmers' Club, declared that he had heard farmers say they had had gamekeepers hatching and increasing game for months on their farms; and when they began to peck their food, and were not able to fly, they were taken in baskets and set down in the middle of the fields to eat corn. Mr. Fisher, a Scotch farmer, said before the Committee that "a man in the Highlands had his entire crop destroyed by grouse." My objection to this change is a fatal one—that it is impossible to separate these two heads of game. If you substitute for the Game Laws a Trespass Law, as regards ground game, who is to tell which a man is trespassing in search of? The landlord will be sure to say that the man is after winged game, the trespasser will declare he is after ground game; and while there is a great head of game left on the land, not only will the evil to the farmer be undiminished, but the evil of poaching and of trespassing will be neither diminished nor done away with. We say simply to abolish the Game Laws is the only way to mitigate the evil.

Now, this is my indictment against the Game Law system. It is a strong one I believe. It is a true and unexaggerated one. I have carried the House through the various classes affected by the law up to the whole of the community. I cannot hope that I have converted the House to my views. The House will, perhaps, excuse me for saying that if there be any subject in this House on which I could not expect it to exhibit absolute impartiality, it would be on the question of supporting these Game Laws. But if I have not converted them, and if we cannot get rid of these laws from within, we must ask assistance from without. I find an historical parallel which encourages me in what I do. We are told that many hundred years ago the fields of the Balearic Islanders were overrun and eaten up by rabbits, which could not be slain by the natives because they were sacred animals. It is interesting to the philosophic observer to notice the continuity of certain religious ideas. The rabbit is as sacred now as it was before the Christian era. Well, the Balearic Islanders found they must get rid of the rabbits, because rabbits and religion together would have been their ruin. But as they were unable to do it themselves, they sent to Rome for soldiers to do their business, who had no religious scruples on the subject. It is what I propose to do. But the Home to which we shall have to send is not farther removed than our agricultural districts, and the soldiers who will do our business will be the enfranchised agricultural labourers. In conclusion, I beg leave to move the Resolution of which I have given Notice.

SIR GEORGE CAMPBELL,

in rising to second the Motion, said, he had not been in the habit of taking part in the debates on the subject; but he was of opinion that the Game Laws were radically wrong, and must be swept away, and if he had not been of that opinion, he would have been convinced by the eloquent and impressive speech of the hon. Member for Leicester (Mr. P. A. Taylor). He did not know whether the remedy proposed by the hon. Member was the best that could be discovered; but, at any rate, they would clear the ground. He was in a position to take a somewhat impartial view of the subject, as for the last 35 years—indeed, from the time he was able to hold a gun—he never missed an opportunity of doing his duty in the way of shooting, although with somewhat indifferent success. He quite admitted that, to a certain extent, man was a hunting animal; and that being his nature, he thought it was well that hardworking men—such as the Legislators of that House—should, after they had terminated their labours, return to their savage state, and the pursuit of wild animals. As it was a good thing to turn a horse out to grass, so it was a good thing that a man should be turned to his savage state at times. But this might be carried too far in the interests of the rich. As a consequence of the preservation of game, it was a fact that, at the present time, a Highlander had become almost an extinct animal in his own country, which had been converted into a ground of enjoyment for the rich. In the view of our requirements as a great Empire, it was, he believed, an irreparable error to have caused the wholesale emigration of Highlanders to take place. The result of such a depopulation was that we had not now the men for our Armies that we formerly had. In the Highlands, men had to give way to sheep, and sheep to grouse, and thereby a great national loss had been sustained. His opinion, however, was that, although the Game Laws might, in many respects, operate for the benefit of the rich, and in some sense, when used moderately and fairly, be from their point of view not undesirable, still that the House should take a wider range and consider what was most beneficial to the whole community. The conclusion from the arguments of the hon. Member for Leicester was, he thought, irresistible—namely, that great and grave evils arose to the community from the existence of those laws, and that, therefore, those evils must be remedied by some very radical change. He would not go into the case of the farmers. They were, no doubt, able, to a certain extent, to preserve their interests by contract; but they could not always take sufficient care of themselves, for it was notorious that contracts were frequently found to be insufficient for the purpose intended, and great losses resulted to them from the action of the Game Laws. But his chief interest was in the general community, who might be said to be represented by the poacher. Now, the poacher was an unpopular person, although, he believed, Shakespeare, Robin Hood, and other distinguished persons, who had come down to us as great men and great heroes, were poachers. However that might be, it was certainly the case that there existed in the general community a justifiable feeling against the Game Laws. As he understood the state of things, it was this—The Common Law of England and Scotland was in favour of the poacher. Trespass upon land was not a criminal offence; its utmost penalty was payment for the damage done to fences or crops. Neither was the killing of game an offence at Common Law. But Parliament had, by statute, created a concrete offence, and trespass in pursuit of game became a crime. It was made a criminal offence by landlord enactments and Land Laws, against which the feelings of the people rebelled. What, then, was the remedy the hon. Member proposed? It was simply the abolition of the Game Laws; and he was not sure that, upon the whole, admitting that it would be an evil as regarded the recreation of the rich, it would not, if it were possible, be a good thing to have the Game Laws wholly abolished, and with the Game Laws the game also. But he feared in the present state of things that was not possible. He thoroughly agreed with the hon. Member for Leicester that they could not cure the evil by any mere modification of the present Game Laws. There was one remedy which had been proposed, and which the hon. Member for Leicester stigmatized as idiotic. That remedy would make game property on certain conditions. Unless they abolished the Game Laws and game altogether, he thought the only alternative was to make game property. But he would not do that without compensation. The rights of the people as to free access to land had been greatly abridged in recent times. Not many centuries ago two-thirds of the land of England was common or commonable land. There was free passage over it, and there was the right to the game. Gradually these rights had been taken away, and the greater part of the land inclosed; and the people were absolutely confined to the high roads. The result was great inconvenience, and it would be an additional grievance if the right of the people to the game was swept away without any compensation. The view of the case he had to suggest was that this question of the Game Laws should be treated, not by itself, but in connection with the whole of the Land Question, which was coming rapidly upon us. Unless the Game Laws were to be abolished altogether, the only alternative was to make the game property, as sheep were, under certain conditions; and in that event the people ought to have a quid pro quo in their restoration to some of the other rights in the land of which they had been deprived. The kind of quid pro quo he would suggest would be to give the people an absolute right of way over the land, with fair compensation to the landlord, whenever it was really necessary, and to make that necessary, subject to the decision of a public tribunal, and to establish the liability of the proprietors to the expropriation of portions of the land for purposes of general benefit—for garden grounds, small properties, and other requirements of the people—with, again, fair compensation to the landlord, as had been suggested by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Greenwich. The hon. Member concluded by seconding the Motion.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That, in the opinion of this House, the existing Game Law Code, maintained for the purpose of preserving certain wild animals for sport, is unjust to the farmer, demoralising to the labourer, and injurious to the whole community, and should therefore be abolished."—(Mr. P. A. Taylor.)

SIR WALTER B. BARTTELOT,

in rising to move, as an Amendment, "That it is not now expedient to deal with the question of the Game Laws," said, the hon. Member who had just sat down (Sir George Campbell) had given many reasons why the Game Laws should not be abolished, and yet he was going to support the Resolution of the hon. Member for Leicester (Mr. P. A. Taylor). The hon. Member for Kirkcaldy told them he had amused himself by shooting; but in the hon. Member for Leicester they had a man who had never, perhaps, indulged in the pastime of shooting or hunting since the day he was born. What did the hon. Member know of the feelings of those who indulged in English sports? He must know very little, if he supposed that by one fell swoop he could, by a Resolution in that House, abolish the Game Laws. He had read a great number of extracts from newspapers; but he had not verified one of them. He (Sir Walter B. Barttelot) did not rise to defend the over-preservation of game; in fact, he disliked it as much as anyone. He believed over-preservation had been fatal in some counties, and that had it not been for it, this outcry against the Game Laws would never have been raised. No one was more fond of good shooting than the hon. and learned Member for Oxford (Sir William Harcourt); he enjoyed it, and would be sorry to see it abolished; he would be the last man to go and live or even stay in the country unless he could enjoy this sport. It did not at all follow that he liked to indulge in it to the detriment of anyone else; and it was not necessary that he need do so. They did not require the abolition of the Game Laws in order to get rid of the evils connected with them. The hon. Member for Kirkcaldy did not think they ought to be abolished, but would make game property providing trespass were abolished. Suppose the hon. Member had an estate near a largo town; how would he like a few thousand people trampling over the crops? That could be satisfactory neither to him nor to the neighbourhood; and such a proposal might be dismissed as one which, if it were tried, would certainly have to be repealed. The hon. Member for Leicester had alluded to one of the most mischievous of practices, the buying of eggs. No gentleman ought to buy eggs; it was a temptation to the poorer classes to take them in order to sell them at the highest prices they could obtain; it made them poachers from their youth; and it was an excessively mischievous thing. But that was no reason why the Game Laws should be abolished. No doubt, there were anomalies connected with the Game Laws, and some poachers had been dealt with too severely; but if the hon. Member for Leicester would look at all the cases that came before the magistrates, he would find that they did act with discrimination, and that they made a difference between trumpery cases and those in which violence had been used. He did not deny that an excessive amount of ground game had in former days done a great, he might say an immense amount of mischief; but in his (Sir Walter B. Barttelot's) own county, at least, that complaint had been got rid of as regarded hares and rabbits, by letting tenants come there and have power to kill rabbits. Landlords felt that it was, indeed, to the best interest of both that they should be on good terms with their tenants; they often went out shooting together, and the tenant enjoyed sporting over the property he rented. Did tenants wish to have the Game Laws abolished? If the game on a farm were given up to the tenant he always proved to be the best gamekeeper: no one enjoyed shooting more; and whether the tenants had the game, provided they had the power to keep down the rabbits, they would be the last to say the Game Laws ought to be abolished. If they did not give gentlemen some amusement to attract them to the country and to keep them there, they would have absenteeism, which was so much complained of in Ireland. What an amount of writing there was in the newspapers about the 12th of August, the 1st of September, and the 1st of October! Would it not be a disappointment to the people in the towns if there was no game in the country? In France they could not find a blackbird or a sparrow, and now legislation was necessary to preserve even the small birds. The hon. Member for Leicester had called to his aid the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Birmingham (Mr. John Bright), who never had a good word to say for country gentlemen; but if the Game Laws were abolished then salmon rivers ought not to be preserved; and the hon. Member for Leicester, to be consistent, should include them in his Motion. The right hon. Gentleman was only amiable when he was catching a salmon; but otherwise he described country gentlemen as stupid, good for nothing, and who were only interested in punishing and avenging themselves on poachers. If the Game Laws were fairly administered and over-preservation was stopped, they might be maintained with less mischief than would attend their abolition, and it was for that reason he moved that it was not expedient to deal with them at the present time.

EARL PERCY,

in seconding the Amendment, said, that in mentioning Robin Hood as a poacher it had been overlooked that he was also a highwayman, and that it was as good a defence for highway robbery as for poaching to say that it was a temptation to the poor man that the rich man should have something the poor man wanted. The speech of the hon. Member for Leicester (Mr. P. A. Taylor) was a great display of strong feeling and hard words against the Game Laws and their administration; but his strength of feeling was a good deal wasted, because no one would deny that as regarded such administration there were some evils connected with the system of game preserving which all would be glad to see removed. But when the hon. Member said they were an element in the agricultural distress of the country he did not adduce any evidence of a conclusive character. Nothing which the hon. Member for Leicester said, from the beginning to the end of his speech, as proving damage, referred to anything but hares and rabbits. Besides, the instances he quoted related to only one or two districts of the country. Speaking with, perhaps, almost equal authority, he (Earl Percy) might say he knew parts of England where no such cases, nor anything approaching to them, could be brought forward against either landlords or magistrates. Then, the hon. Member for Leicester compared the state of things in Prance under the old régime to what now existed in England. But no such comparison could be instituted. He did not need to follow the hon. Member in all the accusations he had brought against the working of the Game Laws. Without defending the stringency of those laws, he must observe that many of the cases brought forward were cases in which the law had been stretched in a manner in which those who wished the Game Laws preserved disapproved. The hon. Member for Kirkcaldy (Sir George Campbell) had shown most conclusively, as his hon. and gallant Friend the Mover of the Amendment (Sir Walter B. Barttelot) said, what was the real value of the Game Laws in a national point of view. The hon. Member for Leicester said a poor man had now no right to go anywhere but along the highway; but that certainly was not the fact. In no country that he (Earl Percy) was acquainted with was there greater freedom enjoyed by the public to traverse the lands of proprietors than in England, and for this simple reason—that the Game Laws enabled them to put a stop to any abuse of the right. He heard with some alarm the proposal of the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy that there should be right of way over every man's property; but if, in the absence of Game Laws, they were to preserve their property from mischief by trespass, it would be necessary to have a strict Law of Trespass. They had been told that if country gentlemen were deprived of the right they had to enjoy sport, they would most likely leave their homes and live elsewhere. There was a great deal of truth in that; but he put the question on higher ground. That which distinguished this country was what was called our country life, under which a body of gentlemen possessed of property, and having the interests of the people at heart, took part in the sports and directed the local affairs of their district, thus showing that they were of use and influence in the world. Of this influence the hon. Member for Leicester sought to deprive them. This was a question which concerned the whole nation. If, as he (Earl Percy) believed, country gentlemen were the most respected and respectable class in the country, if they did good work and maintained a position which gave to the country character and weight, he said it would be an evil day for the country when those were driven from it who formed so essential an element in its direction and in its power. He hoped that day was far distant; and though he should be sorry to base his objection to the Motion of the hon. Member for Leicester solely on this ground, yet, seeing in it an element of great danger, and taking other objections also into consideration, he begged to second the Amendment.

Amendment proposed, To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "it is not now expedient to deal with the question of the Game Laws,"—(Sir Walter Barttelot,)—instead thereof.

Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."

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