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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

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C.O.

885

21 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH—NOT TO

CONFERENCE

ON THE

DESTRUCTION OF PLUMAGE BIRDS.

MEETING OF MONDAY, FEBRUARY 27TH, 1911. The Hon. E. S. Montage, M.P., Under Secretary of State for India, in the Chair. ́ Mr. JAMES Buckland, called and examined.

CHAIRMAN: What would you like us to do as the outcome of our deliberations here Are we to understand that this Bill of Mr. Perey Alden's is the sort of suggestion you would make for legislative action-A. Not with regard to the Colonies. The idea I had when first I wrote to Lord Crewe about it was that it would be possible with reference to the Colonies to have a Departmental measure which would not necessitate a Bill. The Bill, you see, although there is a Schedule there containing the emu and others, relates to those species of the bird of paradise and other birds that are not in any way associated with our Colonies. Of course, the Bill as it stands would do very well for the Colonies if the Schedule were supple- mented in this way: And all species native to Great Britain's Oversea possessions,” That is to say, if it were intended to have a wholesale

or something of that sort. protection of the Colonial birds.

You are familiar with this Bill-A. Yes.

Q.

You helped to draft it, I understand?—A.

Yes.

We will take Mr. Alden's Bill first and then we can take possibly some Colonial suggestions. How do you get over the objection, which must be familiar to you, that the effect of passing a Bill of this kind would be to divert the trade in the prohibited feathers from this country to our trade competitors in other countries -A. As a matter of fact London has a certain monopoly, or rather is to a certain extent the centre of distribution of feathers, but if you leave the ostrich feathers out of the question and the birds of paradise, and to an extent the egrets, the Continent receives its own supplies of plumes; for instance, there are hundreds of thousands of albatroses which are killed in the North Pacific and which go direct from Yokohama to Paris. Caspian Sea and the Kara Sea, under the Ural Mountains, and is on the high road Perm, as you know, is about equi-distant from the to Siberia, and there are hundreds of thousands of magpies, owls, and other plumage birds from Siberia which go direct to Paris. Then again, the egret is being rapidly exterminated at the instigation of the feather dealers in the Upper Senegal and Niger, and there is not one plume of that comes to London.

Q. At the moment !-A.

At this present moment.

Q. But there is a large sale, you admit, of feathers in this country - A. There is not. To begin with, I will take one argument of theirs, and refute it. They say that the stopping of these fancy feathers would cause the ostrich trade to be diverted.

Q. If you will forgive me, that was not the point I was putting to you for the moment.-A. The point is this, that with the exception of the birds of paradise and the egret, to an extent, there is no plumage trade to be diverted from here because, as you know, the whole of the ostrich feathers which come here are sent in their raw state to Paris, and are returned dressed and dyed. The plumage which you see in the imports that we get from Germany are " cheap mounts in Germany from barn door fowls and the wings of common birds. Taking the imports, the ostrich feathers, for instance, amount to £1,700,000, roughly, and all made the imports that could possibly be affected by the Schedule as it stands now would be about £75,000. That is the extent.

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Mr. FAGAN: But as regards the birds of paradise you have shown that they are imported here by the thousand-A. Yes.

Q. What would become of those consignments if we stopped the importation? -A. In the first place there would be a great diminution in the demand, because if you cut off the English demand you cut off about half of it. The birds of paradise, as you know, and as Mr. Goodfellow who has just come back from New Guinea was telling me, are in a perilous condition, many of them.

CHAIRMAN: How do you suggest that you would cut off the English demand by this Bill of Mr. Percy Alden's?-A. By prohibiting the use of the feathers in England. You must have seen that there are an enormous number of birds of paradise worn in the streets here; in fact, it has become quite the thing at the opera and in the theatres at night to have a spray in the hair, and the consumption is very large in this country.

Mr. FAGAN: But would not those feathers all go to Paris and Vienna -A. Not if they were stopped here; the women would not go over there from here. English supply would be stopped, and that would give the ranks of the species The which are wasted to a terrible extent, time to recoup, and in the meantime the Bill would be made the basis of representation to other Powers. On the Continent, it is not the trade but it is the enlightened opinion which looks to this country for initiative. I know several things which I am not privileged to say, and if England were to give a lead and were to appeal to that enlightened opinion, the Continent would follow suit, not in the wholesale stoppage of plumage, but with regard particularly to the birds of paradise.

Mr. ILLINGWORTH: Would it stop the destruction of a single bird of paradise if we passed this Bill-A. Certainly.

Q We want to know with regard to the English supply not coming here, which you say amounts to a half —A. Approximately.

Q. Would it not rather be diverted to the Continent and merely have the effect

of cheapening the prices here!-A. If it is stopped here, you stop that amount being killed.

Q. Why A. Because a woman would not wear two birds of paradise in France because a woman in England stopped wearing one.

Q. I suggest that they would become cheaper in price and therefore more largely worn.-A. They cannot become cheaper because they are becoming very scarce. It is an awkward position, I admit, but there are two alternatives: to let the birds of paradise go, to let them be destroyed for this unworthy purpose, or for England to make an attempt to save them. You can please yourselves. Of course, if it is determined that they shall be exterminated, there is nothing more to say about it; but if you make the attempt to save them, you will not have the reproaches of posterity.

Q. That is not the point; we are favourable to your case but we want to know the reasons as we have to meet the objections.-A. I am not privileged to tell you what I know about Holland. I am in England now.

Mr. OGILVIE-GRANT: I can tell you something about Holland, and that is that I have had a long conversation recently with Dr. Lorentz who has been making inquiries abroad, and he tells me that the strongest efforts are being made in Holland to take up this case and protect the birds of paradise.-A. Yes, I know; but, as I tell you, I am not privileged to speak.

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CHAIRMAN: But you are of opinion that we could produce a useful effect on the maintenance of the species short of an international agreement, that is to say. that we can do something in this country without an international agreement.-

You can lay the foundation stone which will lead to an international agreement; but, in the meantime, stopping them here will give a pause.

A.

Q. By the enactment of a Bill on the lines of this one?-A. Yes, it will diminish the wholesale slaughter, knowing that the import of birds of paradise is being stopped.

Q. May I ask you one other question on this first clause? The subject of hats, I suppose, has often been brought to your notice?—A.

Yes.

Q. What would you do with regard to a hat imported into this country with a prohibited feather upon it?-A. Have you taken legal advice on the Bill?

Q. No, I ask you as one of the promoters of the Bill.-A. They cannot do that. I have got the very best legal advice about it; I have not got the lawyer's opinion here, but as to the word " imported," there was a case decided, and you

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will find, if you refer to this case, that if a woman wears a bird of paradise on her hat coming into England she is importing it.

Q. What would you suggest should be done in that case?—A, it from her.

I should take

Q. You would confiscate it wherever you found it?-A. Yes, and destroy it. I should not let that be known if I were you; that is in confidence.

Mr. STUBBS: This Act does not provide for that at all, surely; it only prohibits import for the purpose of sale or exchange.-A. If you will look here, this is the clause.

Q. You refer to Sub-section (2) A. No, at the top of the next page. CHAIRMAN: "Every importer claiming to be entitled to the benefit of this section shall, if so required by any officer of Customs, deliver to him upon importa- tion of the bird's plumage or skin a written declaration of the purpose or use for which it imported, and the word importer' as used in this section "shall have the same meaning as in the Customs Consolidation Act, 1876.”—A. That is it-

that last line. It has been tried in reference to an article other than a feather which was brought in for private use, and it was stopped. and it has been decided that the word " importer," if it is put in like that, stops it.

The case has been tried, Q. Your first clause reads "Any person who shall have in his possession for the purpose of sale or exchange a skin imported."—A. Yes.

if

Yes;

Q. But as you say, despite the presence of those words" for sale or exchange," you import a skin for private use you are still contravening this Act?—A. so the lawyer tells me. It was tried. It has been tried in America, and the women are not allowed to wear them in America.

Q. Let me put this to you: your object is to prevent the import either for private use or for sale or exchange?-A. Yes.

Q. And you suggest that you have drawn this Bill with considerable dexterity so that that is the effect of it?-A. Yes.

Q. Although to the eagle-eyed critic in the House of Commons it would not appear?-A. That is exactly the case.

Q. If I might turn to Section 5, you are very hard-hearted about the capture of fish by means of flies -A. When the Bill first went before the Lords Committee there were several of the fly manufacturers who attended, and the manufacturers explained (I may he dense but I do not see why it should be so) that unless they get the feathers of the blue chatterer, for instance, for one particular fish it is impossible to catch it. That I do not believe. I have caught fish myself with a crooked pin, and seen another man with a swell fly trying fruitlessly all day long to catch them. However, that was the history of the introduction of that.

Q. But you are not of opinion that it is any better to run the risk of extin- guishing a bird in order to catch fish than it is to run the risk of extinguishing a bird in order to decorate a lady's hat?-A. No. If my own wishes were consulted I would delete that clause altogether. For all that, as a matter of fact, there are very few birds used for fishing, and one bird would make a thousand flies.

Mr. FAGAN: Would it not meet your object just as well if the importation of certain species of birds for millinery purposes were prohibited—A. No, because it would destroy the trade in this country, and I do not wish to do that. My object in framing that Bill was——

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Q. If you introduced the words "millinery purposes exclude from the operation of the Bill birds imported for scientific purposes ?--- that would, of course, A. Yes; but I think that would be unfair to the trade, to exempt everyone from the operations of the Bill but the millinery people.

Q. You yourself suggest that certain exemptions should be scheduled ?—A. think all exemptions should be scheduled, for this reason, that the private collector thinks," if I am compelled to take out a licence, why not the other people? would be no question of the national institutions getting a licence, and at the same There time it would make things smooth all round.

Q. But would it not meet you just as well if you introduced the words I have suggested?-A. No. If it were confined to millinery, it would give a man like Rowland Ward, for instance-I do not point particularly to him, because I he is careful-

suppose

Q. He would only have birds in his possession for scientific purposes or for sale to scientific institutions.-A. Do I understand that you would prohibit the importation of birds to be used for millinery purposes only?

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Q. Yes.-A. What would you do with those men who get such enormous numbers in and sell them-not collectors-for scientific purposes?

CHAIRMAN: Private dealers or taxidermists-A. They call themselves taxi- dermists, but they are private dealers.

Mr. FAGAN: But they could not dispose of their feathers for millinery purposes. -A. But they would for other purposes.

Q. What other purposes-A. They could become distributing centres.

For museums and private collectors-A. Yes. There must be a limit put to private collecting.

Mr. JOHNSON: You mean that people might use them for ornamenting their walls?-Yes, they might make fans with them or screens before their fireplaces, or use them for any other similar purpose.

Mr. FAGAN: This slaughter which is going on is chiefly due to the millinery; I suppose there is no doubt about that?-A. Absolutely none, and the reason why it is so immeasurably more destructive than any other agency is that the feathers, as you know, must be taken from the bird during the breeding season to be of any real commercial value.

CHAIRMAN: You know that is denied; you have seen it denied and suggested that they are very often moulted feathers.-A. Yes, but it is not true the feather becomes perfect the aperture at the end of it closes, and all connection When with the blood vessels is cut off, so that it becomes absolutely a dead thing. It is when they are in this perfect condition that the ostrich feathers are clipped, and it hurts the ostrich no more than it does to cut your hair; but immediately after that the feather begins to lose its smoothness and elasticity, which is the great thing in millinery, as also its sheen or lustre. millinery when they are what the trade phrase calls

Feathers are only really adaptable to the body of the bird. A feather is exactly like fruit; if it is not gathered when live," that is taken from ripe, it is worthless.

Q. Your answer to the contention of the trade that a lot of these feathers are moulted feathers, and that they are not taken in the breeding season, is that that contention is not true?---A. But the moulted feathers sell for four shillings an ounce, whereas the very best It is not true, though they do get some moulted feathers. plumes of the little egret are now fetching over £8 per ounce.

Q. And those are not moulted feathers -A. No, those are taken from the bird.

Dr. HARMER: Do you dispute this statement, for instance, which I see contained in Mr. Downham's book "The Feather Trade," that the feathers exported are for the greater part gathered plumes?-A. That is nonsense.

CHAIRMAN: I just want to make quite sure about one point: supposing it was represented to you that this Bill as it stands would only prevent the import for sale or exchange and would not prevent the import for private use, would you then regard it as a useful measure?—A. Yes; I would regard any measure which

was a stepping-stone to future legislation as useful.

Q. Then the Bill would be subject to the objection which is so often made to it, that it would divert the trade, because then the private user of feathers would buy her feathers abroad, would she not?A. Yes, but you must remember that women are not going to rush over to Paris simply to buy prohibited feathers.

Q. I understand that a large number of them do go?-A. They go and buy their feathers there now; English women, at least the smart set," buy all their things in Paris, and consider it infra dig. to buy anything in England.

Mr. FAGAN: Coming back to this question, it seems to me that it would really facilitate the passing of this Bill if you so worded it as to shut out from its operation museums and private collectors? A. I am of the same opinion with you with this exception: do you not think it would justify the trade in raising a storm of protest! Why ought they to be singled out like criminals when other people are exempt!

Q. You will have a storm in any case, and it seems to me that it is the trade you want to stop.-A. You would be taking off half your armour-it would be haring you to attack if you went straight for them. They would say," Why have you got your knife into us so much? What about these others?'

Q. These others are not doing the damage.-A. that they are.

But it is said by the trade

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Q. I think you would have no difficulty in disproving that statement.—A. have disproved all their statements, over and over again; and they come up serenely the next morning and say the same thing.