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C103
Article; from Feature 'Life is what you make of it'
FOXHUNTING
In Britain
Paintings and pictures of fox-hunters
in their red blazers and black hats, astride a moving
horse and accompanied by a pack of hounds, are regular
features of a typical British pub. If art really does
imitate life, a stranger would think that fox-hunting
has been a regular pastime of British people for centuries.
This view would have been re-enforced when the body set
up to defend foxhunting, The Countryside Alliance, mobilised
400,000 people to its September 2002 march in London.
Those who
set up The Alliance include some of Britain's wealthiest
land owners and it is the massive imbalance in land ownership
throughout Britain which makes fox-hunting with hounds
possible. Researchers have only recently been able to
uncover the fact that just 189,000 families own 88% of
the land. Three periods are important: the arrival of
William the Conqueror in 1066 who parceled out the land
to himself, his friends and the Church; the era of Henry
the Eighth who dissolved the Catholic monasteries and
distributed 10 million acres to 1,500 families; the 17th
century Acts of Enclosure which prevented people from
using common land to graze their cattle - they had to
choose between starving, emigrating or finding work in
the developing industrial areas.
The very
small numbers of people who own most of the land believe
they have the right to do whatever they want on it. Chasing
a fox is made all the better by the knowledge that the
land you're running over is yours, whilst invited guests,
following on foot or by car, can glory in the opportunity
to mix with their social superiors.
Major landowners
have invented the idea that foxhunting is a real countryside
tradition. If it can be shown that foxhunting is a long
standing practice the hope is that people will support
its continuation.
Foxhunting
only started because of diminishing numbers of wild deer.
A wealthy
country gentleman, Hugo Meynell bred hounds to chase foxes
and started the 'sport'. When the Prince of Wales gave
foxhunting his patronage in 1793, after giving up hunting
stags in Hampshire, this royal seal of approval guaranteed
foxhunting a future amongst other aristocrats and major
landowners. Although the animal being hunted changed,
and has remained the fox, there were no changes in principles,
namely that the private pleasure of the privileged few
was a legitimate basis for determining the allocation
of land in Britain. The landowner could do whatever he
wanted on his land, not matter how it affected others.
It is this that lies behind the defence of foxhunting
with hounds and the culture which goes with it.
Article reproduced from CIRCA
103, Spring 2003, p.63.
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