In about three months’ time from now, the centuries-old country practice of foxhunting with hounds will be a criminal offence in England and Wales, following the decision by Labour MPs to vote for total abolition of the activity. It has already prompted thoughts on whether foxhunting groups will defy the law and make life in marginal rural constituencies difficult for Blair and his cohorts. Personally, I hope Labour lose a swathe of key seats on this issue, although in practice I do not imagine the issue will be a make-or-break one. But it will have an effect.
In issues like this, it is easy to get caught in the thickets of whether foxhunting is particularly cruel or not, a necessary activity, etc, etc. But it seems to me that the supporters of foxhunting allowed themselves to devote too much time stressing how many jobs would be lost from a ban, and not enough time on the fundamental issues of liberty and property rights. What appals me – as one who has never been to a hunt meeting in his life – is that the banners of foxhunting are determined to crush a particular form of enjoyment. Foxhunters have fun. Yes, their idea of fun may not be yours or mine – but our lives would be pretty bleak if our pleasures could be struck down at the whim of a temporary majority of our fellow electors. In banning a form of fun, this government has shown itself at its bullying worst and established a particularly nasty precedent, coupled with a rancid amount of bigotry against the ‘upper class’. The affair is a reminder of just how much class hatred still exists inside the so-called New Labour Party.
The property rights issue also has not been stressed nearly enough by the now-defeated hunting lobby. The government has essentially told owners of land that they are not allowed to hunt game on it in a certain way. It is, along with the outrageous ‘right to roam’ legislation giving ramblers freedom to go on owners’ land, an attack on the ownership rights of landowners.
The question now has to be – who is next? Game shooters, anglers, horse riders? What happens when today’s cheerless puritans run out of things to abolish? Will they spontaneously combust?
I am writing this up in deepest rural Suffolk, which is not a main hunting area like Leicestershire or Gloucestershire, but nevertheless the locals are steamed.
UPDATE: In case anyone brings up the argument about cruelty to animals, while I strongly sympathise, I should point out that the abolition of hunting with hounds will not mean the end of killing foxes, which are classed as vermin. They will be shot, gassed and trapped. Nice.
There have been plenty of individuals who stressed liberty and property rights. Big committee-run orgs like the CA are structurally biased against that sort of stand-on-principle. Plus the CA, which gets all the press, is the half-hearted wimpy “please only ban us a little bit” version.
“The now-defeated hunting lobby”? Well, maybe the political “lobby” is defeated”, but hunters sure aren’t yet.
Julian, I hope you are right, and in fact I was rather angry when I wrote this piece, as you can probably tell. Let’s just say that the actual implementation of this ban may prove a very embarrassing process for Nulab. I hope so.
Johnathan
Julian
Both comments can be applied directly towards the leader of the Countryside Alliance (his name escapes me) for his appearance on Question Time last week. This was the day that the House of Commons outlawed hunting. I expected passion and fireworks from him. Unfortunately there was no leadership at all. The only statement of his that I can recall is the one where he said he had written to members of the CA to say they should not break the law. Frankly it was all very depressing. I could only conclude that if this is the kind of defiance sent into battle by the CA, hunt supporters and others opposed to this law must either organise away from the CA or give up.
Not to hijack, but i just run on this one from
AFP
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/041116/photos_wl_uk_afp/041116171813_d3cdvupq_photo0&e=4&ncid=1756
“A British hooligan in the streets of Belgium. The typical Briton is polite, witty and phlegmatic, but lacks a certain style and has a dental hygiene issue while having an occasional drinking problem(AFP/EPA/File)”
?!
Jonathon,
There are hunts in rural Suffolk fairly often. When I lived in Ipswich as a lad I went horseriding, and the hunts would meet at the stables. My friend also grew up in the villages outside Ipswich, and she remembers the hunts being fairly frequent: They used to get annoyed when her mother refused to let them cross her land, and when her father threw a dog in a ditch when the huntsmen refused to call it off from barking and jumping up at the baby carriages.
Hunts typically had little respect for property, but I agree – I can see no rights based argument for banning fox hunting on consenting owner’s property. Animals do not have rights. We should still treat them with compassion, though, which is why hunting with dogs is immoral, but not why it should be illegal.
the outrageous ‘right to roam’ legislation giving ramblers freedom to go on owners’ land
If you really believed in liberty, you’d support foxhunting and the right to roam, because liberty means doing whatever you like as long as you don’t harm anybody else.
This will be a long time. Does anyone else remember Labour Prime Minister Jim Callahan banning TV watching after 11:30pm in 1979 on the grounds that everyone should be in bed ? (note the time of the post – I should be in bed by government decree)
“The property rights issue also has not been stressed nearly enough by the now-defeated hunting lobby”
This battle was lost when the first Town and Country Planning Act became law and people were no longer able to decide what to build on their own land.
I dont hunt, but relations of mine do in Machan in S wales.They’ve flushed Ron Davies out of many a thicket round there long before the News of the World.
As a Libertarian, I believe let those who wish to do so.The arguement that the pro hunters should have stressed the freedom liberty and propery rights angle is nice, but er at the risk of ironying you out that’s a dog that dont hunt! Nobody in this country takes a “principled ” stand on anything anymore.Presumeably the Hunters thought to use the “it’s our livelyhoods ” tack as our trade union ancestors did in the past when the mill or mine closed down out of economic nessessity.Well it didnt work because the left of labour still think their back in the 1960’s and they smartly remember the miners strike.In fact this whole legislation may just be a retribution for that defeat.But I know from my relations that they are just going to keep on keeping on.”yes just write us a ticket officer and we’ll contest it in court .Considering that they cant convict murderers , terrorists and rapists, the burden of proof is going to be ridden over by my relations big time.Unless they RE-WRITE that burden.I wouldnt put that past this new labour either
Come on, Genetic Engineers! It’s your big chance to do some good.
Knock up a chimera fox/something else and sell it to the fox hunters. Perhaps even do a similar job with the foxhounds too, then you would be neither ‘hunting a fox’ nor ‘hunting with dogs’.
Phil Hunt, liberty does not involve the “right to roam” on other person’s property. Whether one harms said property or not is irrelevant. Do I have a right to roam into your back garden without your consent? No, I suspect you would reply, and rightly so.
Foxhunters who go onto a farmer’s land without permission should be treated as trespassers, but foxhunters who are on land with the consent of the landowners are violating no rights. The key issue is that it is up to the owners of property, and not the State, to set the rules.
Fairly basic, really. It also proves the value of property in assuaging potential conflicts, since if animal “rights” types want to restrict hunting, then an obvious way for them to do so is to buy land. A number of private landowners already probably impose restrictions on hunting, as is their right.
The ‘right to roam’ legislation is interesting. As someone who walks a lot I’m a huge fan on purely selfish grounds – in fact it annoys me that you aren’t allowed to camp or light fires, although obvious that would be exploited by gypsies in the first case and by teenage arsonists in the second.
I see a rough parallel with the laws of many (most?) US states that allow hunting on private land by default. In fact there is the bizarre situations where walking on someone else’s land with a gun is legal, but with a walking stick is illegal. Odd.
Anyway, I think perhaps the US model should have been copied more. Landowners who don’t like the idea of ramblers could ‘post’ their land (set up lots of signs at minimum intervals saying ‘no walking here’). The cost of doing this, combined with the low impact of ramblers would mean that most major landowners would not post their land, while those smaller ones who really dislike walkers would go to the trouble of doing this each year (the postings have to be dated and maintained).
steer: well, fair enough, but only if you apply a the same rule to houses and gardens. I might some day feel inclined to sample the contents of a stranger’s fridge, and if you had forgotten to “post” your house, well I should by default be able to wander in off the street and help myself to a beer. And, if not your house, I’m sure someone would have forgotten to post theirs. After all, my convenience overrides other people’s property rights.
(Oh, and you can be sure that I’ll carry a tape-measure so that if posts are for whatever reason wider apart than the legal minimum, I’ll be able to slip in through the virtual “gap”. Ignorance is no excuse!)
The original post is perfect in every way and I would not quibble with a single word of it.
As a secodary matter, I’m not aware of any state law, in any US state, which permits hunting on private land ‘by default’. I think there may be a confusion here about the exact impact of ‘posting’ laws. If a landowner ‘posts’ his land – marks it with clearly-visible and sometimes-defined signs which say ‘no hunting’, then anyone who hunts there is committing multiple trespass and game-law violations. If a landowner does not ‘post’ his land, the criminal consequences for a person who hunts on it may be much less, if any, but he can be ejected at any time. Public access to unposted private land by default of the owner is a common-law tradition which is more common in the Eastern states. As you head West, game and trespass laws tend to reverse completely from that position, and require hunters to have the permission of a landowner to hunt, regardless of any posting or fencing laws. Many state game licenses, for example, will have an area for the landowner to sign the license, and hunting private land without that signature is in itself a game law violation.
In summary, generally speaking, noone has any general right to hunt on private land ‘by default’ in any US state. Allowing hunters to use private land ‘by default’ – by not ‘posting’ the land – may allow hunter some common-law rights in some states, but all are at the sole discretion of the landowner, who may eject or ban any or all hunters at any time for any reason, or no reason.
Most hunters in the US are very well-aware of the issues relating to private land. Especially in the more Western states, trespassing to hunt is a very serious matter indeed, as many landowners rely on hunter income to support the costs of owning the land.
llater,
llamas
My boss is an ardent shooter and now feels such despair that he is planning to sellup his farm in Cornwall and move to France.
He told me today about a survey that is conducted every year of Labour MPs, asking them what they would like banned.
Obviously for the past few years Hunting has been number 1 and shooting and angling have feautured highly. The idiotic thing is that number 7 in the most recent copy is sheepdog trials. That is when you get some sheepdogs and they chase sheep around until they are put into a pen. Marks awarded accordingly for skill and speed etc.
I can see my boss’s point of view that he may be better off leaving if everything he feels passionate about is taken away….
but France?
Would everyone please stop refering to “labour” or “nulabour”, they are socialists of the worst kind.
Labour became obsolete in the early forties.
Speaking of activities that people want banned, have a look at this PETA initiative that was published in the Sydney Morning Herald last week.
PETA want your empathy
He should consider land in Montana or Wyoming.
If he buys enough, he can get Resident status, and live on it. A quarter or half million dollars US will buy an enormous amount of land out west … and he is in no danger of losing his rights to hunt or own firearms.
I lost track of the count of deer, antelope, and elk bedding near the road on the way to the Wyoming Free State jamboree earlier this year.
Why buy expensive farmland in France … when you can buy a chunk of land bigger than the county you used to live in out here?
Knock up a chimera fox/something else and sell it to the fox hunters.
Quite a while back, I read about some hunters here in the US (where I had no idea there were fox hunts, at least those involving dogs and horses). They lay a trail of fox scent, which leads to a stuffed pillow or something (maybe there’s a prize, too, I’ve forgotten). No foxes are harmed in the making of this hunt.
It wouldn’t be as much fun as tweaking the police with a mechanical fox or somesuch, but it would be better than nothing.
Angie Schultz: that’s called “drag hunting” I think. It has another useful function: it provides an alibi for the continued existence of hunts.