LEGISLATION AGAINST PLANT DISEASES AND PESTS 13! 



Rome Convention implies examination at the place of 

 origin. This is a wide and important difference involving 

 a question of principle, and unless the Governments of 

 tropical countries can see their way to adopt this change it 

 seems to be impossible for them to ratify the Convention. 

 The advantages and disadvantages need, therefore, to be 

 carefully considered. The latter are, of course, obvious. 

 The large size of most tropical States, the difficulty of 

 means of communication, the smallness of the white 

 population in many instances, and the difficulty of secur- 

 ing a strict compliance with the law among the native or 

 coloured races make inspection difficult and evasion an 

 easy matter. The number of pests, both those that are 

 known and those that are not, increases the difficulty, 

 while the rapidity with which an imported pest will spread 

 and the obstacles in the way of overtaking it seem almost 

 insuperable objections. At first sight, therefore, the 

 arguments in favour of examination and treatment at the 

 port of landing seem almost unanswerable. On further 

 consideration, however, there seems much to be said for 

 the opposite point of view. Fumigation at the port of 

 landing may be a satisfactory means of preventing the 

 introduction of disease, but it does not appear to be more 

 efficacious than fumigation at the port of departure; and if 

 the diseases against which the country wishes to be pro- 

 tected are known, an examination of the consignment 

 by a competent inspector is in most cases as good. All 

 that is necessary, therefore, is that consignments that are 

 exported should be examined and treated, if necessary, 

 instead of those which are imported. Moreover, if the 

 examination can take place at the premises where the 

 plants were grown, there is not only a much better chance 

 of detecting the disease, but the results are more satis- 

 factory, since it is clearly better to search for and destroy 

 disease in one's own country, where the discovery may 

 lead to national benefit, than to expend one's energies in 

 excluding the disease from elsewhere. Nearly all tropical 

 countries certainly all of moderate size and longer settle- 

 ment aim at the control of some plant diseases in home 

 farms and plantations, and all that is necessary is the 

 extension of this principle a little further. In theory it is 



