SINCE the infringement of civil liberties is generally pernicious and, since hunting-with-dogs is one of the less inhumane methods of pest-control, we should oppose its prohibition on the grounds that to prohibit it would be illiberal, illogical, sentimental and inhumane.

This is quite apart from the fact that the socio-economic impact of such prohibition, on many parts of the country, would be deleterious in the extreme.

As a former townie and animal-rights activist, I did not find it easy to come to this conclusion.

I was impeded, in particular, by the beguiling argument that the prohibition of such sports as bear-baiting and cock-fighting was controversial in its day. However, bears do not roam the countryside today, nor is poultry identifiable as a pest.

Fox-populations, on the other hand, must either be controlled or extinguished. Only "lamping", with high-powered rifles, is a more humane method of control than hunting-with-dogs (as the Government's own report on the subject showed) and such "lamping" is unrealistically expensive.

If hunting-with-dogs were prohibited, far more recourse would be had to control through snaring, poisoning and shooting with shotguns, all of which cause protracted, agonising deaths in a high proportion of cases, and which - without the protection local hunts give to the fox - would probably encompass its extinction. This, in turn, would generate problems further down the food chain.

Those who would argue that the fox-population should not be controlled, should remember that all higher predators (other than man) have been removed from the food-chain and that, consequently, there are no natural limits to the fox-population.

STEVE REED, UK Independence Party

Glastonbury,

Somerset.