The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1880-07-24 00:00:00

THE HARE AND RABBIT BILL

The Home Secretary's Bill does not recognise the
fact that a vast number of landowners would prefer tak-
ing twenty per cent. less rental for their lands than
have their sporting rights entrenched upon. This Bill
supposes that "an appreciable damage" has been
done hitherto by the ground game, and to obviate
this it proposes that the remedy shall be the "inalien-
able right " of the tenant to the ground game. Assum-
ing, then that such damage has been experienced
annually by the farmer, he will be benefited to the
extent say of half a•crown an acre. On those estates,
therefore, where the most satisfactory understanding
now exists between landlord and tenant as to the ground
game, the mutual good feeling resulting from such
arrangement will be destroyed, because its very
foundations will be upset by rendering any such agree-
ment illegal. Any contract in respect of the ground
game will not be binding, and the landlord will, in any
case such useless document as an agreement to rent
the farmer's right to the hares and rabbits on his
holding be drawn up, be under a perpetual obliption
to, and at the mercy of, his tenant—a condition of
things which few landlords would find palatable,
and which therefore is likely to result in anything
but cordial relationship between the two. If farmers
are unable to pay their rents and make a
living out of their farms at the present rentals,
landlords must perforce lower their rents or
not- let. • That is an alternative for which they
must be prepared: the intrinsic value of farms will
soon regulate itself in the market, but if the Legisla-
ture steps in with an arbitrary Bill directed against
the interests of the landlord, and exclusively for the
benefit of the tenant at the expense of the former,
he, it cannot but be expected, will naturally avail
himself, to the extreme, of the rights which that Legis-
lature in other matters as between landlord and tenant
provides for him. We should say that the Hare and
Rabbit Bill will, as it now stands, fail in every respect
to give any appreciable relief to the British farmer.—
Land and Water.

"English and Scotch farmers," says a good agricul-
tural authority, "are getting impatient at the delay in
bringing on again the adjourned debate on the Hares
and Rabbits Bill. They do not think that their Irish
friends should entirely monopolise the session. They
can see, however, that it is to the tactics of those who
have been called 'farmers' friends' that the waste of
valuable time is due. It will be a bitter disappoint-
ment to them if the Bill is not passed tlnkiugh the
House of Commons before the end of the session.
Even if it should not get through the tipper House,
it will be a great satisfaction to farmers to see it
marked with the approval of the Commons. No
agriculturul measure of the present generation has
been half so popular amongst the tenants generally.
A large proportion of the Chambers of Agriculture
have passed resolutions in its favour, while in only
two, I believe, have the landlords been able to carry
amendments against the Bill."—Pall Mall Ocnette.

A special meeting of the Leicestershire Chamber of
Agriculture was held at Leicester on Saturday to
discuss the Hares and llabbits Bill. Among those
present were Major-General Burnaby, M.P., Sir A.
G. Hazlerigg, Sir A. Palmer, Major Pearson, &e.
Mr. Foster, moved, "That this Chamber regards with
satisfaction the introduction of the Bi ll of the
Government for the settlement of this question and
phort of a measure involving
is of opinion that nothini;
the principles of the Bill will be satisfactory to the
tenant farmers, or sufficientlY beneficial to the
country at large." This haying been seconded, Major
, Pearson moved the following amendment :—"That
the Hares and Rabbits Bill brought in during the pre-
sent Parliament, and especially that part of it pro-
cuing to do away with freedom of contract between
randlord nnd tenantoneetz with the entire die 3pp:royal
I I' VA" Chamber, as it is not likely to be or any
PraicticAal SerriCe to the oci...Aipiere of 1442 d." After
a Very wrxrci diecusbio4 the amendment WU l;arid
by a majdrity a fair Voles.