24 CATTLE DISEASES 



The alarm created by this outbreak led to the appointment 

 of a Select Committee of the House of Commons on Cattle 

 Plague and Importation, and the report of that Committee 

 included recommendations which embodied to a large extent 

 the proposals which the Chamber had been advocating for 

 ten years past. This was regarded by the Chamber as the 

 chief Parliamentary event of the year, and encouraged them 

 to increase their efforts to induce the Privy Council to give 

 real protection against disease. 



At the February meeting the Duke of Richmond's letter 

 was fully considered, and resolutions were adopted, and sent 

 to the Government, giving reasons for the Chamber's dis- 

 senting from the terms of that letter, and for adhering to their 

 statement sent in in May, 1876. 



Lord Fortescue (Chairman for the year) raised a debate in 

 the House of Lords early in the Session, and at the April 

 meeting the Council passed a vote of thanks for the able 

 manner in which it had been introduced. This same meeting 

 supported a motion of which their Vice-Chairman (Sir George 

 Jenkinson) had given notice in the House of Commons, in 

 favour of slaughtering imported cattle at the ports of embarka- 

 tion, except store stock, which were to be strictly quaran- 

 tined. Members of the Council were nominated at this 

 meeting to give evidence before the Select Committee, and 

 three of them eventually appeared before it. 



In November the Council expressed their great pleasure at 

 the terms of the Select Committee's report, and urged the 

 Government to give immediate legislative effect to the recom- 

 mendat ons contained therein. The Cattle Diseases Com- 

 mittee said : 



" Your Committee view with extreme regret the continued 

 reiteration of the groundless imputation that our efforts to obtain 

 security for our flocks and herds against imported disease arise 

 from a desire to procure any reversal of the free -trade policy 

 long deliberately adopted by this country. We have sought 

 protection, not against competition, but contagion from abroad. 



" Your Committee would call attention to the fact that, during 

 the restrictions this year upon the importation of live stock from 

 the greater part of Europe, the prices of meat have not risen, 

 but, on the contrary, are appreciably lower the natural result 



