478 VETEEINAEY HYGIENE 



Still, if compensation is regarded as a right thing, it should 

 be Imperial, and not out of the local rates ; the latter 

 enactment only defeats itself when the people who have to 

 pay are the people who make the regulations, with the 

 result that there is no uniformity and often great hard- 

 ship. 



The alternative to State compensation is insurance, but 

 as a man will not insure his life to save his family from 

 poverty, nor make provision for his old age, it is perhaps 

 too much to expect that he will insure himself against loss 

 through his animals suffering from a contagious disease. 

 We recognise the difficulties of overcoming our national 

 improvidence, but it does not alter what we believe to be 

 the guiding principle to be followed. This question will, 

 however, be examined again later on. 



Restrictions on Movements.- — If the terms of the Act and 

 the Orders thereon were followed out with any degree of 

 exactitude, the spread of disease would be almost an im- 

 possibility. It is here the veterinary portion of the Board 

 is in evidence in the framing of regulations. The restric- 

 tions are most severe, and rightly so ; but there is no 

 machinery on the spot excepting that of the constable and 

 lay inspector for carrying them out. The result is that 

 though in this respect they are models of legislation, they 

 are rendered practically useless, either by their being per- 

 missive, or by the power of Local Authorities to mar their 

 most important features, and their right to employ untrained 

 men to put them into execution. 



Even the Central Authority with its machinery at hand 

 moves slowly. Their delay in imposing restrictions on 

 the movement of swine in an affected area has at times 

 been extraordinary. In the words of McFadyean, ' the 

 guiding principle (of the Board) appears to be, figuratively 

 speaking, to allow the disease a good start before imposing 

 any restrictions on movement.'* On this point there has 

 been improvement recently. 



There is no power, within the full control of the Local and 

 * Jowrnal of Comparative Pathology, vol. xv., part i. 



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