Bird Notes and News 



given by the Postmaster-General proved 

 clearly that the trade was not a British 

 industry. There was a British market and 

 a good many dealers and brokers, but 

 practically no industry. A Committee had 

 been started, which he believed was organ- 

 ised and financed by the dealers, called the 

 Committee for the Economic Preservation of 

 Birds, but he did not believe it was the 

 intention of that Society in the slightest 

 degree to stop this traffic in birds, nor did 

 he see how any recalcitrant trader who 

 refused to accept its suggestions could be 

 compelled to follow them. The only 

 means whereby it was possible to stop this 

 trade was by legislative action. It was high 

 time, after five years' of persistent agita- 

 tion for this, by Members of this House, 

 and many others outside the House, to 

 waste no more time in taking the legis- 

 lative step essential to prevent the traffic 

 existing and increasing. 



Mr. W. R. Greene was opposed to the 

 Bill, and suggested that the Government 

 should turn their attention from the 

 destruction of bird-life in foreign countries 

 to cases of cruelty at home. 



Mr. T. M. Healy said it was a matter 

 of ill-omen that the Government found 

 time for a Bill dealing with the ornaments 

 which women wore, while the women 

 themselves were being forcibly fed in 

 prison because they were unable to get the 

 suffrage they had claimed so long, and for 

 the discussion of which time could not be 

 found. In South Africa, where there was a 

 British Ostrich trade, all the tail feathers 

 might be pulled out of the live bird, causing 

 the most exquisite agony, but British 

 virtue held up its hands in indignation if 

 a nigger in Borneo brought down a bird 

 with bow and arrow. He considered that 



there should be some restriction with 

 regard to bird-life, and that it should be 

 treated as the seals were treated, for the 

 protection of which careful measures were 

 passed, year in, year out. If the right 

 hon. gentleman had been in the feather 

 trade would he have brought in this Bill? 

 The country had not heard about it ; let it 

 be enquired into by a Select Committee, 

 and compensation provided for the work- 

 men who would be thrown into the 

 gutter. 



Mr. Henderson said that with regard to 

 women and the Bill, three of the principal 

 supporters of Women's Suffrage in his 

 constituency sent him an urgent appeal to 

 support it. With regard to Ostriches, he 

 could emphatically state that there was no 

 cruelty ; and, with regard to the market, 

 it was a mere bagatelle compared with the 

 market for Ostrich feathers. If the 

 destruction went on, the birds would be 

 exterminated, and the people employed 

 would lose their work in that way. 



Sir. J. D. Rees contended that the Bill 

 would be a dead letter, because England 

 could not affect the slaughter of birds at 

 the uttermost ends of the earth. Lord 

 Curzon admitted in his speech before the 

 Royal Society for the Protection of Birds 

 that his own administrative Order was 

 unsuccessful, and led to wholesale 

 smuggling.* 



The larger part of all the plumage birds 

 from the British possessions came from 



* What Lord Cuxzon said was : ' ' When I was 

 in India we were able to do something really 

 substantial there ... I believe this Order has, 

 been a good deal evaded in practice. The fact is 

 our line of attack is not complete, and perhaps the 

 weakest link is that at our end of the chain in 

 this country there is no prohibition of the import 

 or sale." This can hardly be twisted into an 

 argument against a Bill to support the action of 

 India by prohibition of import. 



