§ SIR ALEXANDER GORDONasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether Her Majesty's Government will move Parliament to restore in Scotland the liberty to protect crops from injury by allowing the use of spring traps in rabbit runs; a liberty the people of that country enjoyed prior to the passing of the Ground Game Act of 1880, but of which, under a recent decision of the Court of Session as to 222 the meaning of that Act, they are now deprived, while in England and Ireland there is no such deprivation?
§ SIR HERBERT MAXWELLI rise to Order. I wish, before the answer is given, to ask you, Mr. Speaker, whether the statement contained in the latter part of the Question is not debateable?
§ MR. SPEAKERI see no ground for interposing between the hon. and gallant Member (Sir Alexander Gordon) and the House. The part of the Question to which the hon. Baronet (Sir Herbert Maxwell) refers contains a reference to a recent decision of the Court of Session with regard to the meaning of the Act. How far that would be correct I am not aware. It may be matter of controversy.
§ SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTPerhaps the hon. Baronet opposite will allow me to answer the Question. The latter part of the Question of my hon. and gallant Friend is, I think, framed under a misapprehension. The law is the same for all the Three Kingdoms in this respect. My hon. Friend says that the Act of 1880 took away the rights which were previously enjoyed. In one sense that is true; but hardly, perhaps, in the sense which my hon. and gallant Friend understands it. It did not take away really from the tenant farmers anything which, as a rule, they enjoyed; because, under the terms of their leases, they were prohibited from killing game in any way whatever. But, during the progress of that Act through the House of Commons, it was represented to me that if persons, whether tenants or others, were allowed to set spring traps in the open everywhere, they would kill a great many things besides rabbits, which nobody desired to kill. For that reason, and also because I think the use of spring traps at all is a cruel thing, I was very willing to limit the use of spring traps, not as against the tenants only, but as against everybody, proprietors as well. That was what really took place. Accordingly a clause was inserted, by which no person is allowed, whether he be proprietor or tenant, to set a spring trap in the pen, for this reason—that it kills a great many animals which it is not desired to kill. That was the real meaning of the insertion of the clause. As far as I know, certainly in England, there has been little or no complaint of the operation of that clause. There are 223 plenty of other ways of killing rabbits besides spring traps, and they have been found efficient. As to the decision to which my hon. and gallant Friend refers, of the Court of Session in Scotland, I understand that my right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Advocate is contemplating the introduction of a measure to remove the difficulty which has arisen on that decision.