Presidential Address given by Michael Fryer at the Annual
General Meeting of the Crusade Against All Cruelty to Animals on
30th October 1976:
There is increasing reference today to an imminent and possibly
prolonged drop in our standard of living. The improved material
standards which have been a feature of life in developed countries
in the last decades have arisen out of man's technological progress
and no-one would deny that many of the benefits therefrom have made
life pleasanter and less arduous for a great many people. It is
unfortunately true, however, that appetites tend to grow on what
they feed on and so we have found ourselves in an age of materialism
- some would say gross materialism - which may look glossy and
attractive enough on the surface but which, when examined more
closely, is seen to have built-in recipes for disaster - and I refer
not only to the material aspects of an economic collapse, but also
to the effect of a materialistic philosophy on man's mental and
spiritual nature.
Let us think for a moment about the much-overworked phrase 'high
standard of living'. It is commonly taken to mean the enjoyment of a
good proportion of this world's goods and services. In my view this
is too narrow and limited a view. Living does not - or should not -
consist merely of getting and using and eating, etc. etc. Man also
has a mind which grows on what it feeds on; if unused or not fed
with good material, the mind tends to deteriorate, which in turn
results in deterioration in man's behaviour.
It is a grave mistake to think that the acquisition of material
wealth and goods is the indisputable sign of a high standard of
living. If such acquisition were all that man needed to give him
contentment and mental and spiritual wellbeing then the majority of
the citizens in developed countries should by now exist in a
pleasant state of euphoria, but all the evidence points to the
contrary. The thinking person cannot avoid the conclusion that
something fundamental is missing from the lives of a great many
people. Man does not live by bread alone - or even
cake! His very nature cries out for something more but so often he
knows not what this is or where to find it. Consequently, despite
so-called higher living standards in the material
sense which so many people now enjoy, peace of mind - the peace
which alone makes life worth living in the true sense
- appears to be the privilege of the comparative few. And yet the
clamour for maintaining and improving the standard of living goes on
and any threat to it - as we are witnessing in these troubled times
- is met with widespread fear and dismay, anger and acrimony.
It is my personal view that we have been living in a fool's
paradise, believing that there was unlimited scope for the ever
continuing development of an affluent society. We are forgetting -
or choosing to forget - some of the world's problems which directly
affect in one way or another the living standards of every world
citizen. I refer to the human population explosion and the
ever-increasing demands the earth's teeming millions make on the
finite resources of the world - not only food but the energy and
mineral wealth on which rests the whole of our complex technology.
We are forgetting - or choosing to forget - or perhaps we were never
made aware of the fact - that we each come into the world with
nothing, that the world owes us nothing,
and that the greatest contribution any human being can make during
his short stay here is to make the world a little better before
leaving it.
Now you may wonder what this has to do with animal welfare. It
has a great deal to do with it as I shall seek to show. Whilst man
has been striving and clamouring for an ever higher standard of
living for himself, the majority of men were not caring tuppence
what was happening to the beleaguered animal kingdom, even though
much of the wealth they sought or the material goods they wanted to
enjoy were based on or came directly from the sacrifice of the
animal kingdom to suit man's needs and ends. The affluent society is
a consumer society and so often modern man greedily consumes the
earth's treasures without a single thought as to his responsibility
in the fields of conservation, protection and restoration.
Man constantly seeks a better life for himself but so often
without regard to the immense amount of cruelty and exploitation
that is the lot of many species in the animal kingdom every single
day of every year. Only now and again when some new horror hits the
headlines will there be a momentary surge of pity but, judging by
the lack of consequent action, this is soon allowed to subside and
life continues in its man-centred way. Poor recompense we make to
animals for the vital part they play in our lives in countless ways!
Poor recompense for the millions sacrificed yearly in one industry
or another to meet man's needs or desires!
In the short time at my disposal today I can refer only to a few
aspects of man's use of animals which give grave cause for concern.
We now have instant world communication and scarcely a day passes
without one section of the media or another carrying news of this,
that or the other form of animal exploitation or cruelty. We can no
longer justify apathy on the grounds of ignorance. The facts are
known or available if we care enough to seek them out. It is known
that there is an enormous international trade in exotic animals -
animals snatched from the dwindling few wild places of the earth to
meet the greedy demands of the affluent society. Let us not make the
mistake of putting the entire blame on those who rape the wild for
their pathetic victims! So long as there are markets willing to pay
the price, there will be people to supply those markets. On the
occasions when a consignment of animals is found dead on arrival at
London's Heathrow, the trade in exotic animals hits the headlines
and there is temporary public dismay. Nobody knows quite how big the
trade is as there are no hard international statistics but it is
estimated that animals make up 10 per cent of all air passengers.
The suffering and death which seems inseparable from the trade
begins in the countries where the animals are captured and perhaps
the luckiest are those whom death claims quickly in their homeland.
Real fur is still a much-coveted status symbol - one of the
outward signs of a high standard of living for many who apparently
do not concern themselves over the suffering fur-bearing animals
endure to feed man's and woman's vanity. Millions of wild
fur-bearing animals are still caught every year by means of the
cruel leghold or steel trap. This is illegal in Britain but not yet
in the countries producing most wild fur. However, although Britain
no longer permits such traps, huge consignments of skins of
fur-bearing animals come to London each year to be sold in the
world's fur markets because London is still the clearinghouse for
the world's fur trade. When an animal steps on the trigger plate of
a leghold trap, it is caught alive by the leg and there remains in
pain - sometimes for days - without food, and suffering cold and
exhaustion until it dies or the trapper comes to kill it. Some
animals have been known to gnaw or twist off their paw in order to
escape. How can we in Britain call ourselves a nation of animal
lovers when we are prepared to turn a blind eye to the continuing
cruelty of the leghold trap by allowing the import of millions of
furs obtained by this means?
The answer lies, in one word - MONEY! So often principles go
overboard when there is money to be made and this is the big
obstacle holding up many much-needed animal welfare reforms. There
can be no other justification for the British Government's continued
refusal to ban live exports of food animals for slaughter on the
Continent. There is certainly no humane justification
for it.
Attempts to increase agricultural productivity in all countries
to meet the expanding food needs of the world's exploding population
have brought about great changes in farming conditions. Today more
and more animals are reared under factory farm systems - a
revolution stimulated partly by rising price of land and farm labour
- and scarcity of both - and partly by the desire to produce mass
food more cheaply under present conditions. So here in Britain as in
many other developed countries we have broiler chickens, battery
eggs, white veal, pork from sweatbox pigs and so on - all produced
from animals which are divorced from the living soil and kept in
close confinement to suit man's convenience. But despite the immense
amount of publicity given to these factory methods of farming over
the years (and Crusade has played an enormous part in stimulating
such publicity), how many of the public today give a thought to the
methods by which such products are obtained and to what frustration
of natural behaviour our farm animals are subjected?
Not only have the majority of our farm animals been divorced from
the land; it would also seem that many of our people have become
divorced from reality by the artificiality of so much of life today
- divorced from their age-old links with the world of living
creatures, each species a link in the chain of life's
interdependence. Far better in the long run for our physical, mental
and spiritual wellbeing to have no washing machine, no TV or car
than to be cut off from our birthright of contact and kinship with
the living world of Nature!
It has been said that it is the battery cage mentality which
gives rise to the battery cage system of living both for animals and
for man - and we are now beginning to reap the bitter harvest in
vandalism and psychological illness resulting from crowding people
in close proximity in the unnatural environment of high rise, high
density blocks of flats with scarcely a blade of grass or a tree in
sight. We could have learnt a lesson from the stress and behavioural
symptoms exhibited by animals incarcerated in factory farms which,
in an attempt to combat the unnatural effects of such conditions,
necessitated the use of drugs, special lighting and other aids. But
perhaps it is only just and right that we should experience for
ourselves the ill-effects of shortsighted planning. Let us hope that
behavioural studies of both man and animals under such stress
conditions will result in more enlightened and humane conditions in
the future.
The revolution in farming techniques which now rely so heavily on
technology and costly sources of energy may itself in due course -
and perhaps sooner than we think - fall victim to yet another
revolution made imperative by the need for Britain to become more
self-sufficient in food supplies. Our production of eggs, chicken,
pork and beef from animals reared intensively is heavily dependent
on imported foodstuffs which makes us extremely vulnerable to world
food shortages and high prices of cereals. To make any progress
towards self-sufficiency in food supplies, Britain would need to
take steps to lighten this dependency on imported cereals which
could only come about by a reduction in the intensive farming of
livestock. One would prefer that such a reduction could be achieved
out of humane consideration for the animals involved but, being
realistic, one must acknowledge that it is far more likely to come
about through concern for the self-preservation of the human race.
Now it could be said that these three aspects of animal cruelty
and exploitation to which I have referred - the rape of the earth's
wild places for its wildlife, the cruel trapping of fur-bearing
animals for their skins and factory farming - are not done by the
vast majority of people. This is true. The vast majority are not
directly responsible for the exploitation and suffering
in the sense that they do not commit the actual deed. But as members
of the materialistic society they are indirectly
responsible because in one way or another a great many of them
provide the markets for the products. They are also indirectly
responsible if they know something of the facts and yet silently and
without any protest whatsoever acquiesce in the continuance of the
exploitation. And yet, if challenged, a large proportion of the
ordinary public would admit most fervently to being animal lovers.
I am beginning to distrust the term 'animal lover' because it is
so often misleading. What the majority mean when they say they are
animal lovers is that they love cats or dogs or horses or budgies or
perhaps all of these favourite or domestic pet animals. They seem to
find it very difficult to extend their circle of interest and
compassion to those animals which are not cuddly or at least very
familiar to them. One should not perhaps be surprised at this just
as I am not surprised, although immensely saddened, by another
aspect of cruelty to animals which can be laid directly at the door
of many ordinary people because they commit the act of cruelty in
full knowledge of what they are doing to a defenceless living
creature. I refer now to one of the most distressing by-products of
this age of materialism - the appalling increase in the number of
unwanted stray cats and dogs. The last decade or so in which more
people have had more money to spend than ever before has also been
noteworthy for an increase in callousness towards pets that gives
cause for the greatest concern on behalf of the animals so used and
also on behalf of the mentality of people who are capable,
apparently without a qualm, of abandoning or otherwise disposing of
unwanted pets. Dogs are obtained by some as easily and with as
little thought as when buying a packet of cigarettes. The current
popular breed in puppies is bought without any real thought as to
the responsibilities entailed so when the animal becomes a nuisance
or grows bigger than anticipated, it is quickly disposed of. I say I
am not surprised by these trends for the following reason. Once
people concentrate so much thought and energy into the acquisition
of material things and consider that life owes them the instant
gratification of every whim, the finer senses inevitably become
dulled and moral values overlaid.
This brings me back to the theme on which I began my talk - the
standard of living. When all is said and done, the only standard of
living worthy of the name and also worthy of having the adjective
'high' applied to it is one based on decent, compassionate
principles and ideals, which is not at all dependent upon the state
of one's bank balance, the size of one's house, the number of cars
in the garage, the exotic holidays of which one can boast, or the
number of gadgets with which to make one's friends envious. Isn't it
because some people at least have realised what a snare and delusion
the materialistic life is that they are opting out to the wild and
secluded places to get back to a more natural way of life?
A high standard of living which is to me worthy of the name is
the one lived by the golden rule "do unto others as you would they
should do unto you" in which this rule is applied to the animal
kingdom as well as to one's brother man.
Those of you old enough to remember the Second World War will
recall what a tremendous spirit of comradeship, self-sacrifice and
dedication to others those terrible days inspired in many people. Is
it too much to hope that in the months - and perhaps years - to come
when it seems we are going to have to tighten our belts and face
reality squarely, that something of the same spirit will return so
that instead of clamouring and fighting to go one better than the
Joneses in our share of this world's goods and pleasures, we shall
once more opt for the finer things in life - the decent,
compassionate principles and ideals, remembering always that the
best things in life are free!
Man needs to learn greater humility in his relation to the world
of Nature. He is after all only one detail in Nature's vast canvas
of life, albeit through his power, ruthlessly used, he mars the
whole picture. He needs to learn his rightful role, that of
benevolent guardian of the rest of life on earth.
If our economic tribulations could help eventually to achieve
this result which is after all essential to the very future of
all life on earth, then we can truly begin to talk about
a high standard of living!
From The Living World No 15, 1977
