ADDRESS BY SIR SYDNEY OLIVIER.
THE annual meeting of the Humanitarian League was held at the Westminster Palace Hotel on Thursday, April 2, at 7.30, Mr. Ernest Bell presiding, when an address was given by Sir Sydney Olivier, K.C.M.G. Mr. Bell drew attention once again to the position which the League holds in regard to the treatment of animals. It was, as the report pointed out, no part of their purpose to duplicate the work of societies which exist for the suppression of some particular form of cruelty, and such organisations are far more numerous now than they were when the League was founded; their object was rather to vindicate the principle of animals’ rights as a whole, inasmuch as a clear recognition of rights must precede. any comprehensive redressing of wrongs. In regard to blood sports, however, the League has taken a more definite line, because there is no society which deals specially with this subject, and it will issue shortly an important volume of essays entitled “Killing for Sport,’’ with a preface by Mr. Bernard Shaw, in which the subject of blood sports will, for the first time, be fully treated from the ethical and social standpoint. It was sometimes asked why the League devoted so much time and attention to the matter of corporal punishment. The answer was that in the domain of criminal law and prison questions, where much has been done, and is being done, to bring about needful reforms, there are now only two absolutely savage practices surviving from. a barbarous past, viz., hanging and flogging, and for that reason the opposition to these forms of punishment is, from the humanitarian’s point of view, far more important than anything else.
Sir Sydney Olivier, in moving the adoption of the report, said that anyone who attempted to speak on the general subject of humanitarianism must feel conscious of being somewhat Pharisaical, because civilised people were responsible, directly or indirectly, for so many acts that involve cruelty, and it was not always easy to discard them even when one was convinced that they were wrong. In his work of administering the criminal law, for instance, as a Governor of colonies where he had power over life and death, he had the greatest desire to carry out his duties in the most humane manner, and he was served by intelligent officers who shared that desire to the full; yet the whole method of criminal discipline which had grown up was so difficult to alter that he had felt more despair in regard to that branch of the British public service than almost any other. The only thing which made it possible to change the old routine methods that were carried out so mechanically, was to create some new censorium such as had been created by the conviction and punishment of many individuals in connection with the suffrage movement of late, for whom the criminal law was never intended. Society now had the advantage of fresh criticism applied to the criminal law and its workings which could never have come from what are called the criminal classes. The latter had learned to adapt themselves to it, escaping it as long as they could, submitting to it when they were not clever enough to keep outside it. They “played the game” as they understood it, and made no complaints. This new criticism was showing us that the criminal law was futile and absurd, a statement that he himself endorsed as an accomplice of society in administering it. Speaking of blood sports, Sir Sydney Olivier said that there again he alluded to a subject on which it was impossible for some of them to speak without a sense of hypocrisy, especially if they had been brought up, as he had been, among people for whom sport was one of the chief occupations of life. And here they were bound to go slowly and sympathetically, because they were dealing with practices which were followed by many whom they regarded as their intimate friends, and who were by no means of a naturally cruel disposition. The fact was that those who indulged in sports which his hearers had learnt to look upon with disgust, because of the suffering they caused, were in much the same mental state as the ordinary boy, who passed through a phase corresponding to a phase in the evolution of the race, when he was indifferent to suffering and quite callous about inflicting it. They had remained at this stage of arrested development, and were to be regarded as more childish than cruel. For this reason it was only possible to treat them as children, and work upon them gradually. They had to approach the subject in a round-about way, and by taking as an argument some form of sport involving cruelty which these people did not particularly care for, and which, therefore, they were ready enough to denounce, lead them on to a repudiation for the same reasons of the forms of sport to which they were addicted. In his own case conversion had come early, and brought about a complete and lasting revulsion, of feeling, but, they had to deal sympathetically with those who were quite unable as yet to see all the suffering that their perpetual shooting and hunting caused. Then again it was easy to forget the beam in our own eye in regard to the horrors of the slaughterhouses in which we were involved as meat-eaters. This was brought home to them particularly when they came to the question of the old horse traffic, which was arousing so much feeling in England, and which they all hoped was about to be checked. It was comparatively easy to wax indignant over what went on in foreign countries, and forget what was being done in order to supply animals for our own market. For instance, there were just as many casualties among the cattle exported from Ireland as among the decrepit horses exported for the consumption of Belgians. In conclusion, Sir Sydney Olivier said that all our social habits involved us in aiding and abetting an enormous amount of cruelty, and the way of reform meant, for some people, standing aside from a great many things to which they, their families and friends had always been accustomed, in order to try and create a public opinion in favour of humaner ideas.
Miss Edith Ward, in seconding the adoption of the report, spoke of the old horse traffic, and urged that every support should be given to those who were trying to abolish this national disgrace. Mr. H. S. Salt, referring to a suggestion of Sir Sydney Olivier’s that the League should do something more than it was already doing in the direction of prison reform, said that they would be very glad to extend their activities on these lines, but it was simply a matter of economy of time and money. It must be remembered, also, that the Penal Reform League was in existence and doing good work. Captain St. John, the hon. secretary, was a member of their executive committee, and the two Leagues worked in harmony. It was, therefore, essential that they should concentrate on those evils which no other society was directly dealing with, such as blood sports, flogging, &c. The report was unanimously adopted.
The Inquirer, April 11, 1914, p. 236