ENGLISH HUNTING

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23615, 27 March 1940, Page 11

ENGLISH HUNTING

NUISANCE IX WARTIME PROTEST BY FARMERS DEMAND FOR SUPPRESSION [FROM OCR OWN correspondent] LONDON, March 1 English farmers, in growing numbers, are calling for the war-time suppression of hunting. They are expressing their anger in letters to the press and to their M.P.'s, but much more forcibly to one another on market day and other occasions when they meet. Poultry farmers are the worst sufferers. for, with the shortage of feeding stuffs, they would like to leave their birds to range about and pick up what tbev can, but they dare not because of foxes. Nor does it make for very good feeling when the poultry farmer has to kill off some of his birds because they are insufficiently fed, and then lie sees the hunt ride by, the horses sleek with oats. Unworked hunters can be kept at grass, but no horse is going to hunt two or three times a week on such a modest diet. Some of the hunts have stopped paying for damage "for the duration," because in the master's words "they have no money." So the farmer pays. "The Masters of Foxhounds Association," writes one farmer from Darlington, "say they have assured the Minister of Agriculture that they are taking steps to keep the foxes down. That's all moonshine. Hunts import foxes from other districts if they fear they are running short of them. And the M.P.A. is very careful not to say what steps they are taking. We could keep the foxes down all right if it wasn't for the hunts." "I have never interfered with the hunt coming" over my land in peace time," writes another farmer from Kent." But now it's different. We want all the food we can grow and we want it. to keep our pigs and poultry alive, not hunters."