DO SPORTSMEN GET A FAIR DEAL?

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 65, 19 March 1925, Page 9

DO SPORTSMEN GET A FAIR DEAL?

TO THB EDIIOB. Sir,—On Tuesday evening you published m your columns an article contributed by "Sportsman." One can only wonder why a note of exclamation was I not added, so that the public would realise that-"these, sentiments of the "dis.gruntled". few surprise and amuse the great bulk of the genuine sportsmen of the country. Sportsmanship, and au- ! onymity are incompatible, when it com&s to attacking the earnest endeavours of those bodies that are wprking to imi prove the fauna o£ this land. One can only wonder that'a reputable Press,emphasises; by misleading; headlines the anonymous prattlings of a purely destructive critic. It must be obvious to anyone who. lias studied the annual >eports of the acclimatisation Societies, that any charge accusing them of giving undue favour to the rod, to the detriment _of the gun, is unfounded. 'The councils of the acclimatisation societies are stated to be unable to: carry out j their work, as they are composed of "persons unskilled in. conservation " Is it usual for the hospital boards to be composed pi persons skilled in the treatment, of disease? Is the Harbour Board necessarily composed of pilots ■. engineers^'and similar skilled men? "Sportsman's" (!) statement that an absence of ■ goritrolv'-'tends to breed a nation of sneak-shooters and- poachers " is of j-. course, absurd. The influence in't'his direction is ptfblic opinion, and a public opinion that permits a conviited dynamiter of fish to escape with less than half'the penalty paid by a small tradesman' selling liquor without a, license . is directly ■ encouraging poaching. If the l people of this country gave their wholehearted support to- the improvement of the fish ancfegame of the Dominion, and made it their business' to wipe out poaching, we coußl have the finest sporting country in the world; but when the poacher receives a sneaking moral support, and publicity is given to the peevish minority, no true progress will .be made. The true sportsmen right through the country are steadily, successfully (and silently) improving the sporting fauna. Why cannot the self-styled sportsmen do likewise?—l am, etc., ' G. F. V. AN SON. * ,18th March.