Our tourist people are surely watching the fox-hunting controversy in Britain with great interest. For if it did come to a banning, there could be a big influx to our own hunts. With only a few days to go to the 10th, when a possible 100,000 people aim to protest in Hyde Park, London, against any attempt of parliament to put through the measure, the argument is often turned by the fox-hunters into one of oppression. The rural people, they say, a minority, are in danger of being oppressed by a majority that doesn't understand it.
Thus The Field for July: "The word "oppressed" is not an exaggeration. If laws were introduced aimed against other minorities, say Muslims or homosexuals, the cry would go up; "oppression", "racism", and persecution". But when laws are aimed directly against the rural community, the media and political establishments find nothing wrong . . . If you are an indigenous, ordinary, English countryman, you are about to get laws aimed directly against you." The Field adds that the writing is on the wall for hunting and it seems that shooting and fishing will come under scrutiny, too. This is from the magazine's Comment column.
Oddly enough, the thought that the pursuit of the fox as a common sport was on its way out was expressed nearly 100 years ago by the naturalist writer W.H. Hudson in his book Nature in Downland "That fox-hunting will eventually die out as a national sport in this country is now a common belief even among those who pursue it with the greatest enthusiasm; and when that time arrives there will be nothing to save the fox from the fate of the wolf, the marten and the wild cat; unless, indeed a new sentiment should spring up in the place of the existing one to preserve him as a member of the British fauna. It is so easy to kill the fox and he is such a destructive beast, that half-a-century hence we can imagine the farmer and henwife saying. If the fox is wanted alive for the sake of his beauty, or for some such reason, the good people who want him must pay for his keep, otherwise it must be a life for a life.'"
A letter-writer in Country Life claims that hunts kill 20,000 foxes annually, while half-a-million lambs, he says are killed by foxes (representing 2 per cent of lambs born). What, asks a friend, do the urban foxes kill?