Rabbit's Rights

Peers of the Realm' were mightily stirred, last week, when the House of Commons sent to the House of Lords a bill providing that county councils "shall be empowered to enter and reduce rabbits upon land adjoining cultivation," if the cultivator shall have complained of damage from the rabbits.

Clearly this measure would subvert a very foundation stone of aristocracy. If the rabbits of a duke are to be "reduced" upon mere complaint by an adjacent farmer, the sanctity of dukedoms totters in the balance.

Therefore when "that bloody rabbit bill!" came up, last week, landed and rusticating Peers bustled up to London, to defend the right of rabbits to be reduced only by authentic sportsmen.

A long and bitter debate ensued. The Marquess of Salisbury, speaking for His Majesty's Government, earnestly besought Their Lordships not to oppose a bill which Conservative farmers had been promised by Conservative Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, himself a landed country squire and rabbit owner.

When a division was finally. taken the "Rabbit bill" was found to have been defeated by two votes. It will, of course. become law over the heads of Their Lordships if passed three times by the House of Commons. Stupefied clerks of the House of Lords said, last week, that this was the first bill introduced by a Conservative Government to be defeated by Their Lordships in 80 years.