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ABSTRACT REPORT OF AGRICULTURAL 



DISCUSSIONS. 



Meeting of Weeldij Council, Wednesday, March 21s/, 1866. Me. W. 

 Wells, in the Chair. 



The Present State of the Cattle Plague and the Practical 

 Working of the "Cattle Diseases Prevention Act, 1866." 



Earl Cathcart said : There is a great difference between a call to 

 duty and a mere volunteer performance. In the present instance, I 

 have been asked to treat upon this matter by the Jom-nal Committee, 

 and I gave my consent because I considered that they were the best 

 judges of my qualifications for the task, and I was glad of the 

 opi^ortunity to show my appreciation of the Society, and my regard 

 for many of its members. For these reasons, then, I undertook the 

 duty. The first thing I found, however, was a lion in my j)ath, and 

 that lion was the Charter of the Society, which dii'ccts that no politics 

 should be talked here. Well, as I have no strong political predilections, 

 and there are no party interests involved in the question, the lion, at 

 all events, need not be dreaded by me. 



Of course, I must ask your indulgence at the outset, because the 

 ground is so foiled and crossed that it is difficult to hit the true scent, 

 and still more diflicult, when foimd, to run that scent to an end. 

 There are some people who have said in their haste that this is a class 

 question; but I contend that it is not so in any respect whatever; 

 because, fii'st of all, our great object is not of political or party 

 character ; it is simply a regard for the welfare of the country, and 

 we all know that the welfare of the country dej^ends uj)on the sum 

 of the prosjierity of every class in the country, and our mission is 

 to soften down hard lines. Now, this is a question of rents, trades 

 depending upon rents, and employment depending upon trade ; and 

 there is the action and re-action always going on, which make one 

 class dependent upon the prosperity of another. Again, we must bear 

 in mind that the English are a carnivorous jjeople. Ctesar himself, 

 when he spoke of the British, said, " Lacte et came vimnt " (On flesh 

 and milk they live) ; and that is about true to the present day. But 

 we must remember that millions in this country live from hand to 

 mouth, and that the immediate effect of home slaughter is to deprive 

 the poor in toAvns of the offal which they largely consume. There 

 are numbers of people who never taste flesh meat at all, and not 

 imcommonly a Sunday dinner is a pennyworth of sheep's brains. 



Another important question which arises here is that of the supply 

 of milk. Now, the supply of milk has always been short in this 

 country (and that sujiply is materially shortened at the present 

 moment), the English laboiu-er having upon an average only one-fourth 



