FRIENDS OF ANIMALS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 20075, 12 October 1928, Page 18

FRIENDS OF ANIMALS.

A SOCIETY'S TROUBLES.

LORD BANBURY AND CRITICS. QUESTION OF FOX-HUNTING. [FROM • OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.] LONDON. Sept. 7. A fortnight ago a meeting of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals ended in disorder. Since then representatives of both sides of the controversy have aired their opinions in the Morning Post correspondent columns. Lord Banbury, of Southarn, chairman of the society, has penned a reply. " I have taken the chair as chairman of the council on three occasions. The first, in May, at a meeting called by the council, when, ns chairman, I, according to precedent, took the chair. That meeting was called to make two alterations in the rules. The first, to permit the council to take a poll of the members on the election of members to the council; the second, to enable members who cannot attend the meetings in London to record their votes by proxy. "Prior to that meeting Mr. Stephen Coleridge had inserted an advertisement in the Morning Post asking members to vole against the council's proposals, giving as one of his reasons, inserted in the forefront of the advertisement, my action in the respecting the Dogs Bill. I was answering this when Mr. Coleridge, seeing that I had the ear of the meeting, created a disturbance.

"The second occasion was at the annual general meeting, held subsequently, when, in accordance with the arrangement made in the Court of Chancery between counsel, I moved tho adjournment of tho meeting. I merely stated the arrangement, and moved the adjournment. Mr. Coleridge again created a disturbance. " The Majority Shall Decide."

"At the last meeting, which was called in pursuance of an arrangement made boi tween counsel, with the approval of the Judge, I merely stated the facts. Mr. Coleridge created a disturbance before 1 had commenced to speak. "Mr. Coleridge says he is against staghunting on Exmoor. He is against foxhunting. In the Animals Defender of March this year he says:—'We are striving to eliminate the atone images that block the way of progress, and to sub stitute for them persons whose detestation of all cruelty is not tempered by personal enjoyment of hunting animals to death. Fox-hunters are inappropriate in Jermyn Street.' "A certain number of members of tho council retire annually. Mr. Coleridge, in the same paper, has constantly advocated that at the annual general meeting, attended by about 4 per cent, of the members, no one who is not opposed to fox-hunting should be elected. Ho thinks, as the proxies that have come in have shown, that the great majority of members are opposed to him. Hence his opposition to proxies. "All I desire is that the majority shall decide. If they agree with Mr. Coleridge and his noisy supporters, good. I should at once accept their wishes and rotire. If not, I shall remain, despite all attempts to prevent the facts being known by howling and shouting." The Reformers' Alms. One writer who is opposed to Lord Banbury and bis policy, says:—"Those of us who constantly fqrm a substantial majority, in any meeting of members impartially brought together, not only wish tho society to remain unbroken, but we have the temerity to harbour desires for its greater power and welfare and loyalty to tho objects for which it was founded, in support of which we subscribe to it, and to tho furtherance of which bequests are made to it.

"Wc desire that at our meetings wo should not be continually confronted with Lord Banbury sitting in the chair, making therefrom* highly contentious speeches, and deciding, as chairman, that his conduct is in order, even when he nses bad language." •'Wo object to Lord Banbury continually spending the money, given to suppress cruelty to animals, in extraordinary meetings, in polls of members, in collecting proxies, and in circularising the members with advocacy of his policies, the cost of all of which adventures of his have been debited to tho society, running into hundreds of pounds; while any circularising, cf members by those opposed to his policies has to be paid for out of their private pockets. "It is not only unjust, but ridiculous for anyone to suggest that we who aro opposed to Lord Banbury and bis policies arc forgetting the animals; it is for the animals and for nothing else that wo are fighting."