FOR PEACE AND WAR. 85 



examined as to the real existence of a scarcity of horses in this 

 kingdom, and we propose now to glance at the reasons assigned 

 and the remedies suggested for that scarcity. As regards the 

 former, treated by each successive witness at greater or less 

 length, with greater or less degree of detail, they may be com- 

 prised, according to the evidence, under these three heads : The 

 higher prices given to our breeders by the foreign buyers ; 

 the extraordinary demand made upon our market during the 

 Franco-Prussian war ; and the fact that the farmers find it 

 pays them better now to breed sheep and oxen than to breed 

 horses : — * 



" Chairman.— Do you attribute this rise in the prices only to the general 

 rise in the price of other commodities ?— I think that although it has paid the 

 farmer very well to breed horses at the price that he has had, the price that 

 he gets now does not really pay him ; there are very few that breed ; they 

 have found other things pay them much better. 



" Duke of Cambridge. — Why should farmers find it less profitable now than 

 they did before ?— Because the other produce pays them much better ; both 

 beef and mutton pay them much better now than they did before, and the 

 farmers are getting into larger farms, and consequently are more engrossed in 

 other business. Men who kept several horses before rarely keep more than 

 just one or two now. 



" Chairman.— Then, do you think that the number of farmers who breed 

 horses has actually diminished ? — Yea. 



"In spite of the great increase of the demand?— Yes; a farmer cannot 

 breed now; he has not got the materials to breed from; the foreigners have 

 been for years buying all our best mares, consequently what he does breed he 

 breeds from a bad mai-e instead of a good one ; he has sold the best mare, 

 and that has gone to Germany or Russia. They have been gradually taken 

 away for years, and now they have drained the country so much that the 

 farmer cannot breed, because he has not got the mare to breed from." 



These are Mr. East's words, to which he adds his opinion 

 that breeding on a large scale cannot be carried on profitably. 

 We have no mares now to speak of, because ''the foreigners 

 considered our breed the best in the world," and did not care 

 what price they paid for it. They have agents who " know 

 England as well as we do, and they are always looking about 

 and finding out where all the best mares are." Mr. Phillips is 

 surprised to hear that "except during the last French war 

 there have never been above 5,000 horses sent away from this 

 country." It is not the foreign Governments who compete with 

 us, but the foreign dealers. They are not hmited as to price, 



* It would not if General Peel's views were adopted. 



