BILL AGAINST FOX-HUNTING

Press, Volume LXXXV, Issue 25732, 18 February 1949, Page 7

BILL AGAINST FOX-HUNTING

DUKE OF BEAUFORT PROTESTS WIDESPREAD DEFIANCE OF LAW PREDICTED (Special Correspondent N.Z.P.A.) LONDON, February 16. The Lord Lieutenant of Gloucestershire, the Duke of Beaufort, said at a protest meeting in Bristol that if Parliament passed the proposed bill to stop blood sports there would be a widespread defiance of the law. “If the critics of fox-hunting think that by a stroke of the pen they can make us give up the sport our forefathers enjoyed for hundreds of years then they are completely ignortant of the British character,” said the' Duke. He added that he pitied the village policemen who were to be given the job of serving summonses upon a whole hunt. If the bill became law it would be impossible to ask farmers to stand by and watch foxes kill their chickens and do nothing about it. The Duke ended by criticising the actress,. Yvonne Arnaud, who is president of the League for the Prevention of Cruel Sports, the body chiefly responsible for promoting the bill agajnst hunting. “Although Miss Arnaud may be at the top of the tree as an actress.” said the Duke, “she cannot be expected to know how the sport should be conducted.” Speaking for the Gloucestershire branch of the National Farmers’ Union, Mr John Bennett said that if the anti-huntin" bill became ■ law, farmers and their sons and daughters would be much discouraged, and would not put their full energy into their work.