21
T H E VfiGAN
Minister and to Sir Stafford Cripps, drawing their attention to the Picture Post article, and received a reply from the Poultry Branch of the Ministry of Agriculture that they had "no evidence that the battery system of poultry keeping, which is used mainly for egg production on intensive lines, causes any suffering to the birds when it is carried out with due regard to their feeding and hygiene. One of the advantages of the system is that it enables a more effective control to be exercised over the birds from the point of view of disease," and also that it is open to anyone to report any particular case in which fowls are being cruelly ill'treated. It is indeed reprehensive that in official circles there is no recognition of the sanctity of life. Therefore it is only through individual efforts that we can hope to achieve any real improvement in the lives of these domestic animals which are being increasingly exploited to provide mankind with unnatural and unnecessary " food." T H E WAY OF
LIFE
B y TOM W . MOULE, N . D .
E R E can be no doubt that the vegan "way of life," based on the commandment " Thou shalt not kill," is an idealogical conception of no small merit. Some seventeen years of practice in dealing with human physical and psychological problems, however, give the writer considerable doubt as to the practicability of the ideal in our world of to'day. Some of the sweeping and generalised il.iims made for vegan feeding seem to indicate a much greater enthusiasm than a knowledge and understanding of natural laws. Obviously the fundamental injunction on which vegankm is based cannot be carried to its logical conclusion, so long as Man needs food to live. The cutting of vegetables, the removal of fruit, all entail exploitation and pain to sensitive nervous systems, which, although not obvious, may be none the less real. The stirring of the soil, the very act of walking about, inevitably cause suffering and death to innumerable forms of life. One must therefore be careful that one does not become bound by an ideal or an "ism" to the exclusion of the power of discerning true fundamentals. Exploitation, suffering, misery, want, cruelty, are by no means limited to the animal kingdom, and are evidences of Man's disharmony with Universal and Divine Law. The love of the animal should surely be part of the expression of the love for the whole of creation, beginning with one's fellow-man. The exploitation of the animal is not a necessary part even of a lacto-vegetarian regime, but is an expression of human avarice, greed, fear and commercialisation. T H E S E are the true problems which face mankind throughout the world, and which face every individual, since the world is but the individual multiplied. Because this is so, every one of us is responsible in some degree for world conditions. Because we are not aware of