The Sun.
London, England, 1856-01-29 00:00:00

A VOICE FROM A FARMER ON THE
GAME LAWS.

What sound-minded man Can look upon certain species
of injustice, and not at the same time fear that the seeds.
of disunion are sown by the partiality of certain law s,
which have arisen from the indifference of legislators in
altering laws in conformityto present times and requir e-
meats, unless the requirements happen to suit the wan is
of the influential and potential in the governmental d a-
partment ?
As if it were of no consequence about the country ; no
consequence about the majority ; neither of the intelli-
gent nor the morally good ; nor of the industrially im-
portant body of this country; a few, a clique in favour,
however self-elect, are enabled to perpetuate laws which
are inappropriate to the day in which we live, and are
infamous and highly injurious in their effect upon the
grand staple of the country ; calculated to destroy the
feelings of patriotism that would otherwise reign in every
man's breast.
To such an extent is this practised, that even famine
staring us in the face did not seem to awaken any appre-
hension of danger either to themselves or the country.
Who can witness the present price of broad amongst
the commercial and manufacturing and generally labour-
ing people of this country, and not think that the farmers
are getting the best of it just now ? And yet this is not
the ca-e. The farmers have increased incumbrances,
which I shall presently prove, and the fault does not lie
with them, but it lies with those who eat more game
than bread, and who have not to pay for the food of
their game, which they legally steal, with the rise of
corn ; who are insane enough to raise the price of every
man's loaf rather than allow an alteration of laws which
oppress the needy and the commercial world equally
with the farmer.
No casual observer can form an idea of the injury and
r serious damage game laws inflict upon the country ; the
bad feeling they engendel, and the insult they convey
to the intelligence of the day. This law, which might
have been consistent in Edward the First's time, that
part of it, at least, which applied to being taken with
vert or venison, was properly punishable, because those
animals ran generally in the parks of the feudal lords,
and are even now kept and maintained by the preserver,
as are the sheep by the farmer ; but what can we think
of the act extending to wild birds, especially wild vermin
(vermes fvri), which other countries recognise as such,
and laugh- at eur timid Obsequiousness to our vermin
lords, who, by the bye, are fast being replaced by the
cockney sportsman, who has no consideration whatever
for the grower of corn, and considers, by his 201. or 101,
a year for shooting privilege, that he is already a lord,
if he can only get money enough to buy a fustian or
velvet coat, by which he is enabled to call Jack of all
work a keeper ? Of all tyrants, God deliver us from
these petty tyrants, that are strutting out in the country
now in such overwhelming numbers, that little boys can
no longer gather nuts, as of old, without being called
poachers, and are ferociously driven away from the in-
nocent gathering of God's gifts by velvet coats armed
with guns and bludgeons, so ordered by their cockney
masters, tinkers or printers.
In Banstead one of the mushroom pseudo-lords, by
some mere chance, happened to be left 500 acres of land,
which really seems to have bereft him of common fellow-
feeling ; his vermin are so unfairly bred that it has be-
come a farce to cultivate the land for corn with any ex-
pectation of profit. I have not even had my seed back
on many occasions, and yet Mr. Judge Russell Gurney
tells me there is no law for recovery of damages done by
game, whether many or a few. So there being no law
and no honour amongst such bashaw vermin-breeders,
why, we must raise the price of bread, because we can't
grow the crops of corn the country and the labourer have
a right to expect.
Now, I should like to ask why there is no law for re-
covery ? Why this injustice upon the whole industrial
nation I know I shall receive the,old backed phrase-
ology, "You take your farm upon such terms, and it is
your own fault." Now, the Ilobson's choice we get is
like the choice of torture that once rent the walls of
the bastile ; you shall be put upon the rack, or be broken
upon the wheel ; you take life upon such terms ; it is
your own fault. Why do you live ? This specious arguing
won't do for this day ; it is an insult to the day in which
we live.

The reason why I call this specious is, because there
is no solid reasoning in such an answer applied to this
subject, whetherperfas et nefcts. Farms are not like
houses—cannot be built and manufactured to our hand,
where our friends and pleasurable associations surround
es ; neither can we get them carved to our ideality as we
should like ; and when we have at 14. st found one in
most respects to suit ns, we find out the shooting has
been let for years before us, and leased foryears to come.
It is the only farm we can get answering our require-
nsents in every other respect. Now, I say, then, we are
not free to choose. It is that farm, or, perhaps, ruin ;
for I have known men ruined in waiting for farms, hav-
ing spent their all they had to go in with, having left
their farms because of unfair game preserves that nearly
ruined them before.

Now, I say, until we can prove there is freedom of
choice--full and sufficient choice—one has no right to
say it is your own fault because you have take% the only
farm you could get.
The next answer I shall be met with is, " Yon would
have to pay more rent, and the landlord has a right to
take the shooting for himself if he choose charging you
less rental."

Now, you would have to pay more rent, I am told ;
and to give you all the benefit of this argument, what
would that root he in addition to the present ? I will
tell you of a manor for sporting of about 2,000 acres,
which is let for 181. per annum. Now this would amount
to 22. d. per acre. I say, don't you think us farmers can
afford that, as well as these cockney vermin-breeders,
who send the result of their day's sport to the poulterers
of London, which server to pay for the velvet coat of
their sai-disout keeper? I know of another shooting
lease of about 1,500 acres, let to four Londoners, who
have the use of the, parson's house, upon the condition
the parson shoots jointly with them ; however, the par-
son takes the liberty of shooting them, forestalling their
days of arrival, leaving nothing for them but the par-
son's code of morality to fire at.
Now if we could only turn out a parson on Paostead
Downs with his gun iu his hands, what a boon it would
be to the poor who like cheap bread.
The argument that the landlord has a right to take the
shooting for himself, and do as he likes with his own
property, can be answered satisfactorily enough by ana-
logy. Owning other property than laud property gives
no right of injuring your neighbour. The owner of horses
has no right to let his horses destroy his neiohbaurs'
crops simply because the horses are his property, and he
has a right to do as he likes with his own property.
The owner of a gun has no right to shoot a man be-
cause the gun is his own property ; neither has a land-
lord a right to reserve sporting to himself, the effect of
which is to eat his neighbour's and tenant's crops, from
which the entire country suffers, simply because the land
is his own property.
All other property is circumscribed by laws that are
found beneficial to the common good. C.-Irtaioly the
land of England is not a small matter, that the legislator
should overlook a provision that shall have a tendency
to bring about a more abundant and uniform production
of the food we all eat.

Fifty pounds per year for 1,500 acres would be about
Bd, per acre, an amount merely nominal, though much

more tha❑ the former ; so it is a mere delusion to talk

of paying an increased rental that would injure the far-
mer. I will be bound to say that let the farmer pay ac-
cording to the present rentals of shooting throughout the
country, and shoot himself, the game itself would pay
the sporting rents twice over. I3ut the great advantage
would be the national one ; the increase of produce that
would arise from the abolition of game laws on the
land now in cultivation, would be one-eighth. Of the
land that would come into cultivation, now thrown
oat of cultivation, one-sixteenth more, together, mak-
ing three-sixteenths of the entire produce of the
country destroyed directly and indirectly by game
preserves now made legal. This game-law savours touch
of the old nullontempusoceurit regi law which once dis-
graced this country ; the game laws never ought to have
survived the extinction of nullion. tempos, for if it were
seen then it was an act of injustice to yield the right
claim to the king reigning, and that. no length of pos-
session should avail against royal claim, how comes it
that a right of claim is denied to the farmer who
has to feed and keep game, and hie fathers did it before
him for hundreds of years, so if they are not absolutely
his, whose are they ? Why the Lords of the land retain
the power which they denied to their sovereign, and say
. _

nit/ita n?, tempus occurit domino, or vi y lord—a pretty farce
this for the nineteenth century. And yet this farce is
played in real life to the disgrace of this land.
The game preserver will try to say they keep the
game, but as every farmer knows to his sorrow this is

not true ; no answer need be adduced.
Who ultimately suffers for all this ? Not altogether
the farmer, for he rises the price of corn, according to
produce ; the burden then falls upon labour, and the
employers of labour ; and I am enabled to prove, when
I have sufficient space, that directly and indirectly the
loss on cereal crops is one-fourth of the entire crops of the
country ; besides the loss on turnips and Swedes, and
other esculent crops, on which game are most destruc-
tive. _ _ _

--.-.
Say, for round numbers, the produce of the country
is sixteen millions ; one-fourth added to that would en-

able England to grow all her produce for the country,
and the drain of gold would not be so frequently pro-
ducing panics. In other words, the labouring man, losing
one-fourth of the produce of the country, is paying ac-
tually 2d. per quarcern more for his bread on account of
game-laws ; this is reversing the order of things, to the
shame of the rich---this igthe poor man keeping the rich,
instead of the rich keeping the poor, or allowing the in-
dustrious to keep themselves ; every mouthful of - bread
reminding him of unjust oppression in a country that
boasts of its constitution.
If exercise be necessary for any, it is necessary for
all, to the exclusion of none ; and if that be the reser-
vation which the law upholds, why, in all seriousness,
I advise the renewal of athletic galies. Consult Peter
Parley, who teaches how to bring every muscle into
active strength—let every man become a gymnast—
when, to the cockney's delight, he will find an absolute
cure for indigestion ; whilst walking after game only
brings one set of muscles into play, causing fatigue some.
times, without physical benefit.
Hunting is conducted in a much more respectable way.
The farmer has little to complain of these sportsmen ;
and act as gentlemen of the
hunters pay compensation,
land ought. A FARMER.

NEW SOVTII WALES BALNE.—The report of the Bank
of New South Wale; for the half-year ending the 30th
of September, 1555, shows a net profit of 61,821.,
which, with a balance in band of 6,059/., made a divisible
total of 67,341/. Of this sum 50,0001. was appropriated
for a dividlnd at the rate of 20 per cent. per annum, and
9,059/. to the reserve fund (now amounting to 100,0001.),
leaving a balance of 8,252?. for the ecinalise.tien of turo
004104.4•