Singer, Peter

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     E8A 1/3-4   CLIVE HOLLANDS, C~~~~~~!g~ ~~ TH~ BUGLER:THE STRUGGLE FOR A&l~AL RiGHTS,EDINBURGH:MACDONALD PUBLISHERS 1980, xx + 201 pp. The strange title of this book, contrastingwith its more militant and modern sub-title, says a lot about its theme. It is the storyof the traditional British animal welfare and anti-vivisectionist movement awakening from the doldrums of the past fifty years and beginning to organize itself into a twentieth-century political cause. L,tore specifically, comgassion is the BU~leris the story of Animal elfareE  Year., hel in Britain in 1976 to mark the century that had passed since the Cruelty to Animals Act of 1876, the Act which governs animal experiments in Britain to this day. It is also the story of the subsequent movement to 'Put Animals into Politics' (as if there weren't enough animals in politics already, as someone inevitably remarked). Clive Hollands is well-qualified to tell of these events, since he was the Chairman of Animal Welfare Year and Secretary to the General Election Co-Ordinating Committee for Animal Protection. also know as GECCAP,. the body which did, finally, succeed in puttinganimals into British politics. Hollands is an animal welfare administrator whose home base is the Scottish Society for the Prevention of Vivisection. He is not a pnilosopher, and his book contains no sus­-tained discussion of why it is wrong to test shampoos on the eyes of rabbits, or to do any of the other things that Animal Welfare Year and GECCAP were directed against.Although he happily goes along with the idea that animals nave rights, the real basis of his concern seems to be, as his title suggests, compassion. So read Compassion is the BUfler not to increase y~uro  understanding a0 the philos­-animal but for appreciationophy of L rights, an   of the tactical issues involved in actually bringing How the many~ n ng about change. are   different7 ~ t and often feuding animal groups-­- rivalling, as reporter said, a school Lv Ln . one   of amoeba in their fissiparous tendencies-­-to be united? theCo Is it really possible for League Against Cruel Sports to sit down at ehet  same table as the 3ritish Horse Society, many of whose members are active fox-hunters? And what about the National Anti-Vivisection Society and thec  British Union of Anti­-Vivsectionists,~vsecti i  which have squabbled ever sinceSLnc  l898, when uncompromising members of the former group, dismayed itsat c  efforts to seek reform rather than abolition, left it and founded the latter? ' 37 clollands confronts these problems with a confident pragmatism: 'rI am not inter­-ested to know whether a society is too moderate, too extreme or even too militant. ' As long as they aim for the general goalof improvement in the treatment of animals, Hollands is happy to have them join in. Is he right? Or is there a real danger of diluting the drive of the radicals to such an extent that any measures of reform succeed in appeasing the public rather than aiding the animals? Since all the efforts of Animal Welfare Year and the movement to Put Animals into Politics have not yet yielded any change in the laws relating to the treatment of animals Bricain,in t  it is still too soon to say. Hollands believes legislative changes are on their way, and will take place in the next few years. So we shall have to wait a little before we can know if he has taken the right road. For those not living in Britain and not familiar with the animal welfare scene there, this book will provide valuable information. Britain still is, in many ways, the forerunner in animal welfare, and those working in other countries can learn from what has happened there. Though we non-British citizens may smile at some quirks. like the number of titledof their , people on the Boards of their organizations, they did run a political campaign, costing   over £100,000, an ( , to make animal welfare issue in the 1979 General Election. They persuaded every major party to put something about animal welfare in their election plat­-forms. An animal welfare group, the League Against Cruel Sports, made a separate dona­-tion of £80,000 the Labour Party's election( , to fund, making it one theof e  largest donors, apart from the party's constituent trade unions. (Can you imagine an American animal welfare group ranking alongside the dairy farmers and the AHAM  in its campaign contributions?) part, the Labour Party promisedFor its .to abolish hare-coursing and stag and deer hunting. theUnfortunately the party with e  vaguest and weakest animal welfare policy-­-the Conservative Party--won the election. The 1979 election, however, will surely not be tne end of the story, in Britain or in the rest of the world. In everynation the animal liberation movement must find its own path, but it helps to know of the paths that others are taking. Peter SingerMonash University 

Book Review of Compassion is the Bugler: The Struggle for Animal Rights

Peter Singer

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Ethics and Animals

https://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1044&amp;context=ethicsandanimals

Book Review of Compassion is the Bugler: The Struggle for Animal Rights

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