THE PLUMAGE TRADE.
[To THE EDITOR Or THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—Your correspondent's letter in the Spectator of November 1st, like other letters which have appeared lately in the Press, shows a lamentable ignorance of what has been going on for many years in regard to the infamous plumage trade. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, and hundreds of private people, have been doing their utmost to convince the public of the iniquities and horrors of the trade by means of the Press, the platform, and the pulpit, by the distribution of thousands Of pamphlets, and in short by every possible means. Some ten years ago Lord Avebury carried a Bill dealing with the subject through the House of Lords, which was lost in the Commons. Another Bill was brought into the House of Commons in 1913, and the Second Reading was carried by 297 votes to 15. This Bill was opposed by the London Chamber of Commerce, and waa withdrawn just before war was declared. Mr. James Buckland has spent much of his life in fighting the plumage trade. Did he not point out to us in the Press that some two million pounds weight of plumage was imported into England during the first two years of the war ? The apathy of the public has been very great, and it is a disgrace to England that such a trade should have been allowed to flourish all these years, a trade carried on to a great extent by alien Jews.—! am,
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