Leading Article: Animal wrongs

THE WORTH of a cause is not necessarily proportional to the lengths to which people are prepared to go to promote it. Fanaticism is not in itself a sign of moral election. The willingness of Barry Horne, the animal rights campaigner, to die by hunger strike neither strengthens nor weakens the case for the setting up of a Royal Commission on animal experimentation. It proves only his personal strength of feeling: but strength of feeling has not invariably attached itself to the best or most important of objectives.

No one but an incorrigible sadist would wish to visit unnecessary suffering on animals, and there is no doubt that such suffering has been, and continues to be, visited upon them. The supporters of animal rights are therefore perfectly justified in drawing our attention by all legal means to abuses that involve avoidable pain and distress. Farm and laboratory animals should be made to suffer as little as possible. It is quite untrue, however, that animal experimentation is not, and never has been, justified by the benefits it procures, as is claimed by extremists. To take but a single obvious example: Louis Pasteur's early experiment on anthrax immunisation, carried out on sheep. He, too, faced the implacable opposition of the anti-vivisectionists of his day, but his experiment brought immense benefit to mankind, which far outweighed in moral significance the sadly premature deaths of a couple of dozen sheep.

Furthermore, it is not always possible to predict how an advance in scientific knowledge will benefit humanity. The path of science is not a straightforward, but a winding, ascent; and many detours are necessary. Only those who are perfectly satisfied with our present state of medical knowledge could urge a total ban on animal experimentation - and nothing less would satisfy the animal liberationists. They are not, after all, much given to nuanced thought. Indeed, the threat by animal liberationists to avenge the death of Mr Horne, should it occur, by the assassination of 10 vivisectionists or defenders of vivisection raises a serious question about the motive behind the whole movement. The threat is a serious one. Are the liberationists moved by love of animals or hatred of people? It is worth remembering that hatred is always a more powerful spur to political action than love.

The liberationists, it is true, love animals, especially furry ones, but that does not prove that they are motivated by their love: for love of animals is perfectly compatible with the most vicious of character traits, as Hitler's fondness for dogs amply demonstrates. In his case tenderness towards man's best friend did not extend to man himself. Sentimentality and abject lack of feeling quite often co-exist in the same breast.

Mr Horne did not actually injure anyone in his attacks on buildings which were supposed to further the cause of the animal rights campaigners, and which brought him a long prison sentence, but he was reckless as to whether they did or not. People who are genuinely solicitous of the welfare of others rarely turn to arson. For it does not require very much imagination to realise that, even if one means no harm to innocent people, arson is quite likely to result in such harm.

Therefore it was by no means anomalous, as his supporters claim, that Mr Horne should have received a longer sentence than that meted out to many murderers: for most murderers kill only once and then abjure their crime. By contrast, Mr Horne has given every possible indication that he would continue the same struggle by the same means if he were free to do so. His invincible and implacable self-righteousness made him a very dangerous man. It is unlikely also that he would have remained long satisfied even by an accession to his demand for a Royal Commission, which he believed the Labour Party had promised. If the Commission failed to meet his expectations, he would soon have resumed his campaign. Just as extreme anti-abortionists in the United States do not accept the law of the land because they believe it condones murder, and are therefore prepared to commit murder to prevent murder, so Mr Horne and his followers could not accept a law which permitted animal experimentation, however long and carefully a Royal Commission deliberated over it.

When people feel passionately about a public issue, they believe that civil disobedience is justified. History shows that they are not always wrong. Whether they are right, however, is a matter of judgement in each case. The mistreatment of animals is not a justification for Mr Horne's illegal activities, and he is not a hero just because he is willing to pay the ultimate price. A man who pays that price for a cause that does not deserve it is not to be admired. Such a lack of balance is to be pitied, and its roots sought in psychopathology.