A demonstration of the truth
Simon Courtauld
WHEN THE COUNTRY WENT TO TOWN by Duff Hart-Davis Excellent Press, £12, pp. 150 Before they vote on 28 November, on the second reading of Michael Foster's Bill to abolish hunting, Labour MPs should do three things. They should read the speech made in 1949 by Tom Williams, Labour Minister of Agriculture, when another private member's anti-hunting Bill was debated; they should ask themselves who or what will benefit by the enactment of such a law; and they should read this book. Mr Williams had himself sponsored a measure to ban hunting in the 1930s, but when he studied the matter more closely he became convinced that any other method of control would inevitably result in greater cruelty and fewer foxes, because in areas formerly hunted they would be snared, poisoned and shot, and that the support of much of the rural population would be alienated. The House was persuaded by Mr Williams's arguments, and the Scott Henderson report, commissioned by Mr Attlee, concluded that the case for leaving well alone was overwhelming. Nothing has happened since then to justify legislation. A hunting ban would benefit no one and nothing. It would bring widespread unemployment and disaffection in rural areas, it would deplete the fox and stag populations, it would lead to large numbers of hounds and horses being put down, and to the deaths of birds of prey and corvids (from poisoned baits used by upland sheep farmers to control foxes no longer hunted by hounds). The countryside, too, would suffer because farmers would have no incentive any more to plant and look after hedges or maintain timber fencing. Perhaps the only beneficiaries would be the con- sciences of ignorant MPs and bodies such as the RSPCA and the National Trust. (In banning stag-hunting this year, the Nation- al Trust failed inexcusably to have any regard for the future of the deer popula- tion on Exmoor which, without the sympa- thetic management of the three hunts, will be a great deal worse off.) So despairing have country people become at the inability, or refusal, of their elected representatives to understand the role played by hunting and other field sports in the life of the country that 120,000 of them came to London one July day this summer to make their point. Hart- Davis's timely book chronicles the remark- able journeys made by about 140 people (a quarter of their number were women) who walked, blistered but unbowed, from the Scottish border, from the Lake District, from Cornwall and from Wales to demon- strate the strength of feeling at this threat to their way of life.
A peasants' revolt, someone called it, giving the lie to the myth that hunting is a minority sport for 'toffs'. On the march were farmers, farriers, foresters, ferreters — and not all the earrings were worn by women. It was the more impressive for being a motley and good-natured bunch that made its way, singing, eating and drinking — lavish hospitality was extended all along the routes — from the extremities of the country to the rally in Hyde Park on 10 July.
There, in a heroic speech, Baroness Mal- lalieu told the gathering that 'the country- side has come to London to speak out for freedom', for the tolerance of minorities and against misguided urban political cor- rectness. When a rally for Gay Pride had been held in Hyde Park the previous week- end, the Prime Minister sent a message of goodwill. But he declined to extend any sympathy towards another minority whose only vice is to live in the country and prac- tise the traditional sports which have been enjoyed since time immemorial.
As Ann Mallalieu said on 10 July, the countryside is angry. It will not stand meek- ly by if Foster's Bill, or more likely, another one in a year or so, is pressed through Par- liament. Hart-Davis has effectively con- veyed the determination of all sorts of country people to resist unwarranted inter- ference from Westminster.
The owner of a 15th-century family seat in Devon, having entertained the organis- ers of the march from the West Country, commented: 'The last time we had a meet- ing like this here was during the Civil War.' It is especially those in remoter parts of Britain, for whom hunting does provide an essential community spirit, who may now be calling to mind and adapting the words of another Labour leader: 'We shall fight and fight and fight again to save the coun- try we love.'
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