Prabhupāda: All living (beings) should be given protection. This is the government's duty. A king's duty is government duty, that anyone who has taken birth on the land, he must be protected. It doesn't matter whether he's human being or animal or tree. So these are the process of purification. If you don't adopt the process, simply you think the counterside only, there is no wor... So this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement will purify the whole situation. Therefore we expect.
Popworth: I wonder if I could put the point which Dr. Schumacher has made somewhat more forcefully if possible. I am surprised that in the exchange the point he made was not taken and answered. What is at issue is that in your beliefs you are saying it is wrong to kill an animal. It is possible, I don't say this to justify the killing of animals. But it is possible for an animal to be killed by a man in a way that involves far less suffering to the animal than it would die in its natural state. But what seems to be such an infinitely greater evil, an infinitely greater crime against the natural order is, for example, to take one chicken and put it in a cage the size of a shoe box, and then add more two more chickens to it, and then keep them there for the whole of their short natural life, unnatural life. But it seems to me, and, I think, to Dr. Schumacher, that this is an abomination of the spirit far greater than the mere killing of animals. But if it... It seems to be an insult against creation to treat the animal life in this manner. And yet, you do not appear to be shocked by it as you are shocked by the mere fact of killing.
Prabhupāda: It is more shocking than killing?
Popworth: Far more.
Vicitravīrya: What happens is they have large factories where they have thousands and thousands and thousands of chickens in a very tight space, and they breed them for slaughter.
Prabhupāda: Oh.
Popworth: And young cows, calves are kept in a dark shed, deliberately kept in a dark shed and fed on an unnatural diet. They are not allowed to move, they are just kept in a space the size of their body. And for eight weeks, three months, they are fed on unnatural food, milk powder or something, devoid of certain necessary vitamins, to make the flesh whiter so that it gets a market. But that unfortunate beast, instead of walking in the fields under the open sky, he's shut him down.
Prabhupāda: All right, if you are so compassionate, you can kill those animals. But why you are maintaining slaughterhouse, killing nice animals.
Revatīnandana: No, he's talking... He's just saying that the way they're maintaining the slaughterhouse now has become even more inhuman. They don't even leave the animal in the field anymore. They keep him...
Haṁsadūta: One small point. A simple point is that the slaughterhouse activity necessitates to raise them in that way. As soon as there is a question of animal killing, then naturally, you want to be as expedient as possible. So if you abolish the animal killing, automatically this breeding animals in this fashion will also automatically stop.
Popworth: But the slaughterhouse becomes a temple of mercy given these conditions in which the animals are...
Haṁsadūta: Yes. As long as you maintain a slaughterhouse, then there'll be people to breed animals to supply to the house of slaughter.
Prabhupāda: It is nice.
Haṁsadūta: As soon as there's no more slaughterhouse, then the animals are free. They can go everywhere.
Popworth: I think you are avoiding the point.
Revatīnandana: No. It's the solution. If you want to stop that treatment of animals, you stop the slaughterhouse. Otherwise, first you keep them in the field to slaughter. That's already brute mentality. That brute mentality means next I think, "I could get more flesh if I didn't let this cow move. So let me keep him in a case, cage, in the dark so they have lighter meat." This is one stage of brute mentality to another stage of brute mentality. The next stage of brute mentality... They're already killing the unborn child. Now, next, the child is born. That's the next stage of brute mentality. That is predicted in the Vedas.
Prabhupāda: Now, their theory is that when the child comes out of the womb, then he gets the soul. Is it not?
Revatīnandana: Yes.
Prabhupāda: Not within the womb.
Haṁsadūta: Yeah.
Prabhupāda: What kind of theory it is? For killing the child within the womb, they have discovered this theory.