56 CATTLE DISEASES 



The following extract, taken from the Field of 6th January, 

 1906, shows what, at any rate, one Canadian paper thinks of the 

 proposal : 



Canada and the Canadian Cattle Question. 



A leading article in our Canadian contemporary, the Farmers' 

 Advocate, presents' the Canadian cattle question, if not in a new, at 

 all events in a very different light to that in which it is represented 

 by the agitators for the reopening of the ports in this country. 

 It has been a leading aim of the British graziers, as well as of a 

 number of representatives of public opinion in the Dominion, 

 to make us believe that Canada as a whole strongly resented the 

 action of the British Government in refusing access to her cattle 

 into the interior of the United Kingdom. In short, they pictured 

 our premier Colony as harbouring thoughts of a serious wrong 

 inflicted upon her, and as waiting for a suitable opportunity of 

 repaying the Mother Country in her own coin. To those con- 

 versant with both sides of the question this view savoured of the 

 ridiculous, but it seems to have had the desired effect in certain 

 quarters, and it is especially gratifying, therefore, that the oppo- 

 site side to the controversy should be provided with trustworthy 

 evidence which enables them to absolutely refute such absurd 

 allegations. Our Canadian contemporary referred to admits 

 a desire to see the policy of open ports reverted to, but merely 

 on principle, and not in order that it might be taken advantage 

 of by Canadian stock owners, so that, whatever ground there may 

 be in agricultural Canada for asserting that a repeal of the Act 

 of 1896 is desired, it is based on entirely different grounds to those 

 which underlie the selfish object of the harbour trusts and non- 

 stock-breeding farmers in the United Kingdom. According to 

 the journal named, which can claim authority to speak in name 

 of the great body of cattle breeders and feeders in the Dominion, 

 the revival of the trans- Atlantic trade in immature Canadian 

 cattle would be one of the worst calamities that could befall the 

 Dominion stock raiser, and therefore it emphatically dissociates 

 itself from the exaggerated and largely unfounded contentions 

 advanced by the British discontents for a return to the old state 

 of affairs. Of course, there are middlemen in Canada, as well as 

 in this country, who are keenly desirous of renewing the old 

 traffic, which was unquestionably more lucrative to them than to 

 the farmers in the Dominion or the consumers in the United 

 Kingdom ; but we firmly submit that it is not the middlemen 

 whose interests are to be chiefly considered in a matter of such 

 momentous import, but those of the two main bodies, the pro- 

 ducers and the consumers. It is, perhaps, unfortunate for the 

 comparatively few British graziers that they should be unable 

 to procure the Canadian store cattle they seem to appreciate so 

 highly ; but, as our contemporary remarks, the British feeder 

 who wants to get cheap store cattle is, after all, simply another 

 middleman between the British consumer and the Canadian pro- 

 ducer, scooping in profits that the latter ought to have. This 

 remark correctly represents the position of affairs, and it is gratify- 

 ing to find that the true situation is thoroughly understood by the 

 vast majority of the interested public on both sides of the Atlantic. 



But, while our contemporary is strongly averse to a renewal 

 of the traffic in immature cattle, or, in fact, in live cattle at all, 



