It is difficult to estimate the amount of good actually done by a society like the Humanitarian League, which held its twenty-second annual meeting last Wednesday, because it carries on its work so quietly and without advertising itself in ostentatious and noisy fashion. If it could afford to bring itself before the public a little more persistently than it does it might be a good thing; on the other hand, its aims are of a kind that the majority of people, averse though they imagine they are from the wilful infliction of pain, shrink from inquiring into very closely lest they should feel compelled to follow them to their logical conclusion, at a great sacrifice of personal comfort and pleasure. For this reason it is, perhaps, as well that others who are not avowedly “humanitarians” should sometimes get the credit for long years of spade-work on the part of this admirable society, as was the case last year when the Daily Mail published a series of articles by Mr. John Galsworthy dealing with present-day methods of slaughtering animals, which attracted a great deal of attention, and were read by numbers of people who would never have glanced at them if they had appeared as Humanitarian League pamphlets. Much appreciation was shown at the annual meeting of the courage and insight of the Daily Mail editor in publishing these articles. It may be regarded as a good instance of the way in which, after years of steady effort and earnest concentration of thought on a crying evil which is regarded as too unpleasant to talk about, and is consequently tabooed, the subject is suddenly brought up for discussion in a prominent newspaper, and a great step forward is taken in educating public opinion. As Mr. Salt, the indefatigable secretary of the League, reminded his hearers, it was only by hammering away year by year at the evils they wished to see abolished that they could hope to advance their cause, so great was the amount of prejudice which they had to combat, and so deeply engrained were the habits and customs to which so many thousands of helpless creatures were sacrificed daily.
Mr. Ernest Bell, who was in the chair, said he thought they had every reason to be satisfied with the record of the past year. The subject of the sufferings of horses in warfare had been brought more prominently to the attention of the public as a result of the activity of the League, and a resolution in favour of so widening the terms of the Geneva Convention as to protect the veterinary surgeon and the horse ambulance on battlefields was proposed by the League at the National Peace Congress held in London on May 17, and carried unanimously, and a letter asking that this resolution should have the support of the British Government and of its delegates at the next Hague Convention was addressed by the committee to Sir Edward Grey. In this connection it may be as well to mention the Animals’ Healtheries and Utilities Exhibition and Conference to be held at Caxton Hall, Westminster, from Tuesday, April 22, to Friday, April 25, inclusive, referred to by Mr. J. F. Green, a member of the committee. The subject of “Horses in War” will be under discussion, as well as the question of slaughtering, murderous millinery, cruel steel traps, docking of horses, and other subjects of great interest and importance to lovers of animals.
Thanks to the protest of the League, and the persistent opposition to the flogging clauses in the Criminal Law Amendment (White Slave Traffic) Bill of Mr. George Greenwood, M.P., an amendment was carried in the House providing that there should be no flogging under the Act unless there has been trial by jury. This, however, does not go very far, and no member of the League will rest satisfied until the flogging clauses are repealed. Mr. Salt expressed himself as optimistic on the whole in regard to the growth of humanitarian feeling in the country, and he thought that the regrettable reversion to the barbarous custom of flogging was due entirely to the excitement and indignation aroused by a particularly odious crime which carried people off their feet. At the same time the effect of that wave of insane feeling had been to arouse vindictive passions in all kinds of people who were advocating the extension of the practice of flogging in every direction, and this was very serious. He gave a long list gathered from the newspapers of the various “criminals” who, in the opinion of these individuals, called for correction with the lash. They included burglars (armed or unarmed), foreigners who insult English girls, daughters who disobey their parents, parents who neglect their children, suffragette prisoners who refuse their food, pit-boys who ill-treat pit ponies, strikers and poachers, motorists who drive recklessly, pedestrians who throw stones at motorists, drunkards, and Mormon elders. One could scarcely believe that these ideas were put forth quite seriously by people (some of them well known) in a civilised country in the twentieth century.
Mrs. Herbert White spoke earnestly of the civilising work of the League and its effect upon the thought of our time in seconding the adoption of the report, and among the other speakers were Mr. Felix Moscheles, who advocated co-operation between all societies which had for their object the abolition of brutalising forces in human life, and Mr. Tarapore, who gave an interesting account of the progress made in India both in regard to the treatment of animals and prisoners, and made an appreciative reference to the Hon. Mrs. Charlton’s valuable articles on animals in India in the Nineteenth Century and After.
The Inquirer, April 19, 1913, p. 251