Country life
Caligula's horse
Patrick Marnham
This autumn has seen an impressive series of advertisements headed 'Put Animals into Politics!'one has even been placed in the Spectator. The advertisements have been supported by expensive lobbying at the various party conferences and this has all been organised by the 'General Election Coordinating Committee for Animal Protection'. The advertisements have six objectives which reflect what this Committee describes as its 'unique unity' among animal welfare organisations. Three of these objectives are admirable, consistent and impossible to oppose except on commercial grounds. Much factory farming could be replaced with only slightly more expensive methods of production; vivisection for non-medical purposes should never have been allowed; and the export of live animals for slaughter abroad is not only cruel but of mixed commercial advantage since it takes work away from British slaughterhouses.
Two of the other objectives, though consistent, fall into a slightly different category. The first, which is opposed to the widespread neglect of horses, appears to be covered by existing legislation; and the other, which is in favour of stricter licensing of dogs, is really a blow on behalf of the human race, and would seem to be early proof of the infant muscle of the Maupassant Society a newly-formed urban terrorist group whose members beat dogs to death if they feel at all incommoded by them.
But it is the sixth objective, placed last not through low priority but for reasons of tact, that gives the Committee's game away. This is for the banning of 'blood sports', which is here taken to mean the hunting of stags, otters, hares and foxes, and hare coursing. And it is the inclusion of this which shows how little the Committee's essential impulse is concerned with cruelty to animals.
Firstly, the number of animals which are hunted compared with the numbers penned in factories or laboratories is minute. Secondly, the hunting of each individual quarry provides untold pleasure and fulfilment for the dogs and horses engaged in it, and the banning of blood sports would therefore actually increase animal misery. Furthermore, the death of each fox and otter ensures a peaceful few days for countless fish and fowl which would otherwise themselves be hunted to death by the expired predator. And in the case of the fox of course, which is a notorious pest even in suburban areas, alternative methods of 'control' such as gas and poison would cause much more pain and suffering.
There is a further inconsistency in this part of the campaign since two notorious forms of blood sport, fishing and shooting, are not included, Again, these involve the destruction of millions more animals than are ever affected by hunting. They have been omitted because the Tory party is not going to commit itself to ban pheasant shooting and the Labour party does not intend to imprison the nation's anglers. But it is impossible to make an ethical distinction between man's hunting of the perch and his hunting of the otter. Both are done for pleasure and the banning of one activity must eventually lead to the banning of the other.
For the abolitionists to concentrate for political reasons on a supposed form of cruelty which affects only a tiny proportion of animals, and to pretend that they have no plans to supervise the voiceless fish, is not very edifying. If, as they claim, their case is based on public support, they should argue it in full, and then we shall see how much public support they really enjoy.
Why, it may be asked, have the excellent people who recognise the real cruelty to animals involved in modern commerce allowed their efforts to be perverted by the posturing hysteria of the blood sport abolitionists? The answer is money. The League Against Cruel Sports is by far the richest of these pressure groups. Without Objective Six there would be no national advertising campaign against factory farming or cosmetic vivisection. It is the great achievement of twentieth-century altruism on behalf of animals (an urban movement) that it has managed to give all its money to a cause which shows no understanding of nature or country life and which can therefore do nothing to assist wild animals. If the abolitionists have their way we might as well all vote for Caligula's horse, since legislation would be one of the few legal activities left for the poor beast to pursue.
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