105*2 Eat Destruction by Government Aid. [Feb., 



RAT DESTRUCTION BY 

 GOVERNMENT AID. 



E. C. Read, 



Technical Adviser to the Rats' Branch of the Ministry of 

 Agriculture and Fisheries. 



The damage done by rats to the national food supply, to 

 property and to Public health is a matter of the first importance 

 to the community, and within the last two years the question of 

 repressive measures has been brought home to the country by 

 the Ministry's active propaganda. Much has been done to 

 educate the Public conscience. Instruction has gone hand- 

 in-hand with practical methods of extermination conducted 

 on scientific lines. National Rat Weeks, periods of special 

 effort, have had the most encouraging results, both in 

 regard to the number of rats killed, and in the stimulation of 

 Public interest. It may be claimed that the general Public is 

 at last realising the urgency of dealing with the rat problem, 

 and although much still remains to be done. 



Statutory repression of vermin did not originate in 20th 

 Century progressive legislation. In the reigns of Henry VIII 

 and Elizabeth. Statutes enjoining the destruction of rats, mice 

 and even insects were in force. The Account Books of Wardens 

 and Overseers bear witness to payments made out of local funds, 

 primarily ecclesiastical, for such destruction, and these entries 

 continued down to the middle of the 19th Century. As 

 recentlv as twenty years ago the Local Government Board 

 authorised the payment of rewards for the destruction of rats 

 during an outbreak of jilague in East Suffolk, and in 1909 a Bats 

 Destruction Bill was presented to Parliament by Sir Charles 

 Maclaren. The Bill was dropped before the second reading, 

 but a few years later the course of events brought the 

 question before the nation in so urgent a form that legislation 

 could be postponed no longer. In 1918. when the German sub- 

 marine menace had forced this country to augment its supplies 

 of home grown food, it was realised that the storage of 

 foodstuffs brought about an alarming development in the rat 

 population. This increase in rats meant an enormous increase 

 in the damage done to stores — a fact that no national economist 

 could afford to neglect. Consequently, the Ministry of Food 

 issued thp B*ts Order. 1918. and the Ministry of Agri- 

 culture rnr!ert<x)k the administration of that measure with the 

 co-nr^voHn-p n f j,ocal Authorities. The next step was the forma- 

 tion of the Bnts' Branch of the Ministry on 15th January, 1919. 



