PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
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C.O.885
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
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trade. I do not know whether 1 put that too strongly on page 35 of my book. I say boldly that the trade at present is not an English one; it is essentially a foreign trade.
Q. By which you mean we simply handle the feathers here?-A. The feather merchants are not-and they may be none the worse for that-English people, and so far as regards the question of working up feathers which come over here, at least 80 per cent. are only here for the auctions, and then go across to France and elsewhere.
Q. What do you think is the value of the trade in Great Britain-A. You mean what is called the fancy feather trade?
Q Deducting 80 per cent, which come in to go out again, what is the amount of feathers worked up here?-A. I think very little is worked up here. Some of them that come over, and the better ones, are of such a character that they get used without the same amount of working up. It is the proportion of moulted plumes that are dyed and are used worked up that is always most difficult to deal with, I quite agree.
If they were obtained without injuring a number of birds, and without cruelty in obtaining them, and were simply picked up, I do not think we, as serious people, should be fighting the question. I have given the names of firms as we have them here, and the Committee in New York, and perhaps you can judge from that.
Q. But the allegation is that these gentlemen who use these feathers in England use them to employ a considerable amount of labour, with the result that if these feathers were kept out of this country there would be a great deal of hard- ship created, and unemployment would be rife amongst those accustomed to handle and prepare these feathers for market. What are your views on that?-A. set out my views on that on page 30, dealing with the labour question.
I have
Q. I do not pretend to have read this book vet. It has only just reached me.- A. Then probably it would be rather simpler if I deal with it, because I deal with a specific allegation put by Mr. Downhami. It is suggested that it is only during a part of the year they use these particular feathers for making them up. There is no doubt that the bulk of this work is in connection with ostrich plumes, and it is very difficult to test how much of it is for what may be called the fancy feathers. Then the suggestion was made that even then the bulk of the feathers were those of the common barndoor fowl, and so on, worked up, and they are, therefore, manipulating those as well. On page 31 I quote Mr. Downham as saying, in the House of Lords: On the question of labour there may not be so much difference one way or the other, but I cannot admit that it would increase under the Bill."
Mr. FAGAN: Can you give us any information about the bird laws in the United States -A. The present position is this. They succeeded in passing a Bill in June or July last by which, in New York, they can seize and deal with any feathers of birds of which they have species in their own State. That is the extent to which they have gone. That is to say, if they protect a bird of a State they may confiscate the feathers of those birds when they are imported. I do not know whether I make it clear. That is the attitude they have got to at present.
Q. Cannot they seize hats with any such feathers in them!-A. I think they can seize the feathers of birds that are on a list protected in New York. That is the law we have been working on in England in another way; that, if a bird is protected, even though it is taken legally outside the protected county, the Lord Chief Justice held last year that if it is brought into this bird-protected county and protected there, although apparently taken legally, it may not be in the possession of any one.
Q. Even on a hat or for personal adornment ?—A. I am speaking there of a live bird on the question of its origin and coming into a particular area. They say the only way to protect the birds of an area is to protect any specimen of that bird, and any feathers, or anything of that sort that may come from outside into that area.
Otherwise, there is no knowing but what the feathers may be the feathers of birds they themselves have been endeavouring to protect.
CHAIRMAN: So if they were to protect a particular species of humming-bird in New York-I do not know whether there are any such birds there they would prevent the importation of any humming-bird, or any specimen of that species of humming-bird-A. That is according to the form of the schedule.
Mr. FAGAN: I believe it is of that particular species?-A. Yes, I believe that is the form of the schedule. They may schedule any bird of their own country and secure the protection of that bird thoroughly by not allowing imported specimens,
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But I believe they go further, because the law allows them at least to seize a hat that has the protected species on it. Mr. Dutcher was telling me personally about it when he was over here in England, and I wrote to him afterwards to give me a statement with regard to the position of the matter, but, unfortunately, he had a paralytic stroke almost immediately upon his return, and has not been able to do anything in the matter at all, and I have been at a loss to get what I wanted. I hoped to have had that statement, and I had a letter saying they were very sorry but nothing had been attended to since a week after his return.
CHAIRMAN ; You do not suggest, I understand, that it would be a good or useful thing to give the police in England, by legislation, powers to seize feathers on hats, and so on -A. No, I only want it dealt with as a wholesale matter.
Yes.
Q. To prevent the importation for sale of those feathers!--A. Q. You say in your pamphlet you do not believe this would lead to any very large depreciation of a valuable trade to this country ?—A.
That is so.
Q. Have you seen the statement in Mr. Downham's book in which he points out that the very fright which the trade got at the introduction of Lord Avebury's Bill caused a very large diversion of trade to abroad. I saw that statement.
CHAIRMAN: There is a tremendous drop in the year 1908 in the value of feathers from Venezuela-egret feathers--from £32,000 worth to £6,000 worth; and he assures me he searched the Customs' figures and found there was no diminution in the exports from Venezuela, and, therefore, the difference between £6,000 and £32,000 must have gone to foreign countries.
Mr. OGILVIE-GRANT: He also showed. I believe, that they had actually been exported
CHAIRMAN: Yes. He said there was no question of any drop in the exports from Venezuela.
WITNESS: Does that suggest that they lost a market and regained it in such a short time!
It was created for a short
Q. Yes, as soon as the Bill was introduced.—A. period in some other country and then ceased to exist-Q. His statement was that as soon as the Bill was introduced people thought this trade was doomed, and their foreign competitors took the trade and made the profits that year which they here would otherwise have made. Then, as soon as the Select Committee of the House of Lords had reported on the Bill and it was obvious that it would not become law, the trade went up again?-A. That is a point I cannot exactly controvert. For a statement such as that he may have evidence to support it, and I have no direct evidence to contradict it. From the evidence that we have I do not know where the trade has gone to, and we have been in touch with the Continent through several societies abroad. This question is agitating foreign countries, but whether it is doing so as fully or as successfully as here in England I cannot say.
Q. You would like Lord Avebury's Bill or Mr. Alden's Bill, as it is called, to become law. You do not wish hats to be seized, but only to prevent the import of the plumage for sale, and you are not of opinion that there would be any serious harm done abroad to British trade by the passage of such a Bill?-—A. I think that
is so, With regard to the Bills, may I say this, as you put the two Bills together. You said Lord Avebury's Bill, otherwise known as Mr. Alden's Bill. There is a substantial difference between the two Bills, which I daresay you have noticed, as regards the working of them. One has a schedule which allows certain birds to come in and the other has a schedule which says certain other birds are not to come in-the difference between them being that it puts upon the Customs' officials in the one case the consideration whether a particular feather that comes here is in a particular list; whereas, in Lord Avebury's Bill, as it passed the House of Lords, it was the other way round. prohibition.
If I may use the expression, it was a wholesale
Q. Except for a certain class?-A. Yes; in other words the importation of certain feathers might be allowed and not others, thus making the working of it under the Customs' Regulations very much easier. Evidence was given with regard to that before the Committee in the House of Lords, showing that such a Bill as Lord Avebury's could undoubtedly be worked-evidence from the Board of Trade was given to that effect.
Q. And you prefer that method?—A.
consists of those who have considered the question carefully, have not wanted to I am sure that our Council, which give up the attitude which was assumed after a conference between the Royal Society, the Zoological Society, and three or four others, and that was that it would be very
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