Mr. Withers informed the Commissioners that only a 

 fortnight before he appeared to give evidence he had been on 

 the Continent to purchase horses, and had bought in Paris, 

 Hanover, Brussels and Ghent. 



This is an anomaly, but one for which it would be 

 unjust to blame the dealers, for English-bred harness-horses of 

 the class required have not been bred in any quantity in this 

 •country for more than fifty years. 



The enterprising English dealers take measures to meet 

 their customers' requirements by maintaining on the Continent 

 agents whose business has been to purchase tlie most 

 ■" English-looking " animals they can iind ; and it may be 

 asserted without fear of contradiction that the horses so 

 purchased are bred from English stock. 



The steady progress made by the Hackney Horse Society, 

 as evidenced by the annual increase in the number of animals 

 ■exhibited at the Show held each year at Islington, gives 

 ground for the hope that at last this matter of harness horse- 

 breeding is receiving more of the attention it deserves. Those 

 interested in the subject appear now to be realising that we 

 can breed in England harness horses of a class quite as good 

 as, if not superior to, those for which the jobmasters pay high 

 prices in the French and German markets. 



It would be strange if we could not do so, ha^•ing regard 

 to the fact that the foreign breeders have built up their 

 excellent harness horses very largely — almost entirely — on 

 stock purchased from England. 



Private Enterprise i\ England 



It is not, I think, desirable that the British Government 

 should embark upon costly horse-breeding operations in 

 emulation of foreign powers. Private enterprise in England 

 has succeeded in producing domestic animals of all kinds so far 

 superior to those bred in other countries that English stock, 

 whether Horses, Cattle, Sheep or Swine, are purchased at 



