The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1870-05-31 00:00:00

lioret earth! Expos.

IVESDAY, MAY 31, 1876,

There me sot many members of Parliament
of whom we Gould say honestly, that we wish
they would lel tut hear their voices oftener, but
still there are one or two, and among them we 1
hays no hesitation of mentioning out county
member, id.r. H. G. Sturt, and our Dorchester
borough menber, Colonel Napier Stud. The
Howe of Dimmer), is so bored I,y • few inoes-
sant talkers that the men who can think, and
who have grit something to say worth hearing,
shrink from speaking, lest they should be
identified wth the "great talking nuiaanoe."
There are few men whose authority on military
discipline, snd the practical details of the War
Office, Las more weight than that of Colonel
Stun, but that opinion is always given in
private, anci other men have the benefit of his
experience and common sense; and, in all
matters relating to the army he be, we know, a
thorough economist and reformer; whilst his
brother's speech on the Game Laws ahews that,
although he can play, he can, when he likes, do
his work as well as any man. How oasily he
disposed of all the absurd exaggerations of Mr.
P. Taylor ! How, in a few pleasant words, did
he place the whole question before the House in
the proper light; while his own character as a
landlord, the feeling of his tenants, the state of
his cotes, gave irresistible fora, to his good
tempered chaffing of his prejudicial and ill-
informed opponent.
It is quite true that all game preservers and
landlords are not like Mr. Stmt. He has in-
herited, not only large landed estates, but a
high character for common sense and liberality
as a landlord from his lamented father, and we
can only hope that some landlords who applaud
his able defence of their rights in regard to game,
will not overlook his good advice with regard to
their duties to their poorer neighbours and
dependents. All the outcry against game pre-
servation is caused by s few selfish individuals
among landlords, generally men who never
inherited an acre, who think they have pur-
chased the land without any responsibilities, and
have a right to use it as they please; such men
act as if the world was made for pheasants, and
gamekeepers, and rabbits, while foxes and
farmers are no better than vermin in their eyes.
They let • farm, said while they don't forget to
take the rent and grudge every sixpenoe of
repairs, they save the farmer the trouble and
expense of stocking it, for they eat it up with
rabbits and hares, which they sell to the
poulterer. Such men ought, indeed, to be
prohibited by law from such proceedings, since
they are not amenable to shame; but the real 1
English gentleman would not dirty his hands
with such dealings. It is quite true that when
the landlord is what he ought to he, the tenant
is proud to show him a good day's shooting over
his farm, and watches over the litter of cubs in
that little bit of gorse as tenderly as if they were
lambs, and is not a little pleased when the
'squire comes and finds them at the beginning of
the season If we must have such men as Mr.
P. Taylor in the House of Commons to retail
second-hand scandal about landlords, game-
keepers, and magistrates, it is well that we have
men there like Mr. Sturt, who in his own person
is • living contradiction of such stories. It is
not by matting clam against class that any real
good can be done; it is by men calling upon
others in the same position of life to do their
duty, and setting them an example, that all
classes may be benefitted If Mr. P. Taylor
will set as good an example to his neighbours
at Leicester as Mr. G. Sturt does to the land-
lords of Dorset, he will be a more useful man in
his generation, and would not again subject him-
self to be "shut tip" by the witty and good
tempered member for Dorset.

" Harkaway," writing to tbe Sfandard, says he should
like to see bfr. Stunt's speech on the Game Laws printed
in letters of gold, for the enlightenment of that elan of
the community who are desdreu of exterminating game
and the sport' of the 6•111,
. _

I --The Standord sommenting upon Mr. Gerard Sturt's
spinach in the House of Commons on Wednesday night
(see our Parliamentary report) clays :—" Mr. Peter
Taylor is not witty—that is his misfortune; but he is
the of wit in others—let it be counted to him for
a merit. If he had not bored the House of Commons
with smug diatribe against game-preserving landlords
and magistrates on Wednesday afternoon, in moving the
second reading of a bill the preamble of which contains
as many mis-statement as were ever aocumulated in a
few words, the House of Commons would not have been
treated to the racy, manly, and powerful touch by
which Mr. Start onoe more stirred the House of
Commons. Whether Mr. Taylor will consider himself
'shut up' is very doubtful, but Mr. Sturt certainly
fulfilled his promise to perform that operation upon the
1 member for Leicester, as the term is generally under.
! stood. The member for Dometabire proved. with great
humour, that Mr. Taylor knew nothing of the subject of
which he had tallied so mesh. He repelled warmly
I and moat forcibly the libels is. which the member for
Leicester had indulged, and finally, he put the real
I qaestion before the House in the most cogent and
striking form. Much as we appreciate the earlier
Sentences of the honourable gentleman's short but
brilliant speech, good as were his sharp jokes, and telling
as were the home thrusts with which he disposed of
poor Mr. Taylor, the great value of the speech lie. in
the Plain Practical saggestlonv be made for removing an
admitted evil. Mr. Start had shown that game preser-
vation did not necessarily injure occupiers at demoralise
the peasantry. He bed shown the folly and injustice as
well of Mr. Taylor's proposals as of the arguments by
which the measlier for Leimeter supported them, hut he
did not shut his eyes to the fact that there is an ()wil—
ful evil, however, as he truly said, to be cured by social
and moral means, and not by legislation; and one that
might be cured if his brother landowners would or could
take the advice be gave them. Take care, the honour-
able member for Doraetabire said, that every labourer
on your estate is deoeutly comfortably housed, see that
he has a garden and an allotment, and instead of poach-
ing be will be, u the labeurers on my property are,
more or less you.. keeper. Then exUrpate every rabbit,
take care that hares are never numerous, sod above all
do net let your places for shooting; do not put • few
dirty sovereigns to your pockets by selling to others the
game on your estates. Some landlords may have a
difficulty in the matter of building cottages and granting
allotments, bet all can and ought to acquiesce in an
arrangement by which ground game is kept down to
such an extent that it ceases to be miechievons, and
nobody who knows anything of the question can doubt
that a general adoption of Mr. Start's advice in these
respeets would deprive the agitation for the repeal of
the game laws of all fts force. Mr. Taylor arid his
friends would be perfectly powerless but for the disaatis,
faction which an ermines preservation of ground game
has created among the farmers of some districts."
Tag Times says that Mr. Taylor and his friends
borrow from the feudal °ode the old doctrine that no
property exists in wild animals, and then protest
against the injustice of protecting • man in the poseession
of whet—as it represents no property—cannot be his.
Bet, even 11th. pheasants white • proprietor has bred
end fed do not belong to him, they oertainly do not
belong to any one else, taut of all to the men who comes
to steal them. It is • pity that the obsolete terms—
game, game laws., and game preserving cannot be
abolished altogether. It is not said invidiously of a
man that he "preserves his sheep," though few pro.
prieton wish to lose them, and pigs ere Protested from
thieves without special laws or Indignant protenta. If
pbessanta and partridges were simply pat on the same
footing the ease would be clear. A landed estate yields
two returns, the fruits of the earth sod the wild animals
upon it. Owing to the tutu and opuleooe of the present
generation, the latter as well aa the former of these
products has its substantial value. The only "1..,"
required for this kind of property are the same laws
which protest all other property. They need not be any
more rigorous, and they ought not to be any more
, obnoxious.