The Globe. SATURDAY AUGUST 10, 1878.

Globe, Volume XX, Issue 1400, 10 August 1878, Page 2

The Globe. SATURDAY AUGUST 10, 1878.

Some fow weeks ago wo noticed the wish of the Acclimatisation Society that the present system of game licenses should bo done away with and gun licenses take their place. Now that the shooting season is over for this year, we may refer to the matter again. It seems pretty generally agreed amongst sportsmen that if it bo possible, next season should ho a close one for pheasants. The number of birds brought to bag this season was not nearly so large as that of last year, while there can bo no manner of doubt that in many parts of the country the birds were ruthlessly poached. If the society succeed in procuring an order for the next season to bo a close one, sportsmen will suffer, while the poachers will continue their trade, which is confessedly a profitable one. The fact is the society is not popular with the general public. Their constant bickerings with successive curators, and amongst themselves, have not raised them in public esteem, and the cliquism which distinguishes the society was never more paramount than at the present time. Practical men have virtually no chance to bring their knowledge to bear, and the experiments of some of the members are ludicrous from their amatem-ishness. One thing is certain, that the farmers of Canterbury do not love the society. Rightly or wrongly they persist in attributing the introduction of the sparrow to the members of Acclimatisation Society, and the active steps that are now being taken to keep down the number of the feathered scourges shows that the evil has reached a great height. Hares, too, are a positive nuisance in parts of the country, and the refusal of the Society to recommend that a well-known landowner should bo allowed to shoot some of these furry nuisances on his own property, is looked at by many as an attempt to introduce game laws in their worst form. It is not to bo supposed for one instant that a landowner will suffer his garden, plantations, or crops to bo destroyed by hares, and ho debarred from destroying them, by a set of persons residing in town, who do not feel the loss entailed on the unfortunate farmer. If the latter dare not shoot the hares, ho will certainly get rid of them in other ways, and a judicious use of wire would soon thin out their numbers on any one property near Christchurch. Many a man, again, does not care for coursing, and would most decidedly object to have a mob of men and boys running through his plantations, breaking down fences when boating for game. Altogether, wo fear that the poachers have the host of it, and legitimate sportsmen the worst. But would the system of gun licenses do any good. We think not, and believe that a tremendous outcry would arise if such a tax wore proposed, The tax, small in itself, would bo very difficult to collect, and no end of subterfuges would be resorted to in order to avoid it. The experience of the Arms Act in Ireland would be sufficient to show this. True, many a man would pay the tax gladly, but the small farmer or labourer would feel it hard indeed that the weapon he uses to kill a couple of rabbits or so, should ho taxed per annum, in many cases at the rate of a third of its full value. If compelled to pay such an impost, he would naturally use his gun both in and out of season, if ho got the chance of doing so unperceived, and game would bo scarcer than it is at present. The men, on the contrary, who drive out in well-appointed buggies to the Waimakariri Island, accompanied by half-a-dozen spaniels, and who return homo with fifty or sixty couple ot rabbits, would not fool the tax in the slightest degree, and thus legislature in the proposed direction would be simply in favour of one class at the expense of another. Let the Acclimatisation Society embody their views in a representation to one of the Canterbury members, and lot the matter bo dealt with by the House of Representatives as a whole, and then there will he a chance of the plain, practical common souse of some members, keeping in check the absurd would-be game-preserving tendencies of a fow gentlemen who occupy seats in that august body. Whether the result of their deliberations result in gun tax, or a continuance of the present system of game licenses, one thing is certain, if the game laws are made too stringent, poaching will take the place of legitimate shooting; and the experience of many years shows that it is absolutely impossible to stamp out the crime which has helped to fill so many prisons and hospitals in England.