"BLOOD SPORTS"

Evening Post, Volume 105, Issue 4, 6 January 1928, Page 6

"BLOOD SPORTS"

(To the Editor.) Sir,—The article in Wednesday- "Evening Post" on the growing unpopularity, of stag-hunting, fox-hunting, and other "blood sports" at Home makes very encouraging reading; but I was somewhat surprised to see no reference made to the very significant—one might almost say "appalling"—fact that, out of the 77 million acres in the United Kingdom, no less than 26 million acres, or more than one-third of the whole, are held idle for these blood sports. '.'..', The only two fundamental economic essentials for employment are land and labour; and the sufficient commentary on the fact that more than one-third of the land of the United Kingdom is held idle for "sport" is the further fact that, ever since the Great War, Britara has had 1,000,000 to 1,500,000 persons unemployed. It is something that public opinion at Home is beginning to realise that there* is no real sport in blood \ sports. _ It would be far more to the point if British public opinion began to realise that to hold land idle, for "sport" or for any <;ther purpose, is to hold labour idle,-and to demand, therefore, such a tax on land values as would effectively put a stop Ut the sport of holding land idle.—l am, etc., B. SHORTER.