CORRESPONDING SOCIETIES 525 



Parliament with the same object in view. The policy of this Committee 

 is that the Government should : 



(a) Declare that the establishment of National Parks is an essential 

 national service. 



(b) Set up, as chief and central agents, two National Parks Commissions 

 (one for England and Wales and one for Scotland, with a joint com- 

 mittee co-ordinating the two). 



(c) Provide funds. 



But if, as seems to me to be the case, the only suitable place for a Park 

 such as I am dealing with to-day is in Scotland the consideration of its 

 establishment would be for a Scottish committee. The Association for the 

 Preservation of Rural Scotland agrees with the proposal for the establish- 

 ment of National Parks, but is making a separate study of the case for 

 National Parks in Scotland and their special requirements. Scottish 

 National Parks policy presents a different problem and calls for different 

 treatment as compared with that required in England and Wales, so that 

 it is to the Scottish organisations that we look for the reahsation of any 

 scheme for the establishment of a National Park devoted mainly to the 

 preservation of our fauna. 



I may say that the principle has been adopted by a number of authori- 

 tative societies. Recently a meeting took place of all those societies 

 who were interested in the matter for the preservation of fauna and flora 

 and for the preservation of open spaces, and general agreement was 

 reached as to the desirability of action such as I have described. If 

 therefore we agree that a National Park of this description should be 

 created in Great Britain the first consideration is where to put it. I do 

 not myself think that there is anywhere in England or Wales which 

 would prove suitable. I do not think that it would be easy to get a 

 sufficiently extensive area and I also fear that even if such were available 

 the cost would be prohibitive. But the West Coast of Scotland seems to be 

 an ideal spot for such a venture. In those counties there exist thousands 

 of acres of deer forest, and I believe that deer forest land lends itself most 

 readily to the creation of a National Park. In the first place a forest already 

 contains a considerable number of the animals which it is sought to preserve 

 and it may be hoped that others could be acclimatised there. Of course 

 the ideal spot would be an island such as I remember many years ago in the 

 Gulf of Hauraki in New Zealand, which was acquired and stocked by Sir 

 George Grey. But an island would not be a convenient place for the public 

 to visit and obviously it is desirable to have land as accessible to the public 

 as possible even though there are other disadvantages. A National Park 

 must be in forest country not contiguous to grouse ground, for a number of 

 the animals which it is sought to preserve are detrimental to the preservation 

 of grouse and would be very unwelcome neighbours to the owners of grouse 

 moors. On the other hand, if the Park were surrounded by deer forests 

 vermin would be welcome since nothing is so detrimental to stalking as 

 the presence of grouse An old cock grouse getting up just in front of the 

 stalker will scare the deer just as he is approaching his shot. Probably 

 the most attractive animals in a park will be the deer. We have in this 

 country three species of deer — red deer, roe deer, fallow deer. Whether 

 the latter is actually indigenous or was imported at some remote period has 

 not been decided, but if they are not really wild animals they exist all over 

 the country in a feral state. It has been said that red deer are such mis- 

 chievous animals that you would have to fence your park in order to keep 

 them away from cultivation to keep them from doing damage to crops. 



