258 



Agricultural Advisory Committee. 



[June, 



rabbit pest in cases where damage to crops and plantations is sustained 



by the attacks of vermin from adjoining occupations." 

 The Committee recommended that a Bill should be drafted on the lines 

 suggested. This was done and referred for observations to the County Councils 

 Association. The matter was again considered by the Committee after these 

 observations had been received and it was decided to recommend that the Bill 

 should be proceeded with, notwithstanding that the County Councils Associa- 

 tion were not satisfied that there was any necessity for legislation in the form 

 proposed. 



(4; Scheme for the Voluntary Registration of Bulls.— 



This Scheme, which had been referred back to the Committee by the Council 

 of Agriculture for England for further consideration, was put by to come up 

 again when the voluntary scheme of registration now proceeding in Bucking- 

 hamshire had developed. 



(5) Importation of Store Cattle.— At its meeting on the 14th 

 December, 1921, the Committee passed a resolution in the same terms as that 

 which had been passed at the meeting of the Council of Agriculture for 

 England on the 22nd November, 1921. 



(6) Provision of Telephones at Railway Stations Goods 

 Yards. — It was reported that the Controller of Horticulture had brought the 

 question of the* provision of telephones at five railway goods stations where it 

 was needed to the notice, of the Ministry of Transport and the Railway 

 Company concerned. As a result, a promise had been made by the Company 

 that telephones would be installed at three of the five stations in question. Ex- 

 ception was taken in the Committee to the fact that this action did not meet 

 the general question of the lack of telephone facilities. The following Resolu- 

 tion was accordingly passed : — 



" That in the opinion of this Committee all railway goods stations at 

 which farm produce and supplies are dispatched or received should be 

 connected with the public telephone forthwith.'' 

 Further representations were made to the Ministry of Transport, and the 

 Ministry of Agriculture were informed that Railway Companies were not pre- 

 pared to instal telephones at stations where they do not consider that the 

 traffic warrants such a course, or would make it a remunerative proposition from 

 the Railways' point of view. The Ministry of Transport, moreover, felt that 

 the general question of the provision of telephone facilities at railway goods 

 stations was not a matter that should be taken up by the Interdepartmental 

 Committee on the Transport of Horticultural Produce, and it was that 

 Ministry's view that the best course was to take up each individual case as it 

 arose with the Railway Company, concerned. The Agricultural Advisory 

 Committee agreed that in the oircumstances no general action appeared to be 

 possible and that the only practicable policy was that suggested'by the Ministry 

 of Transport. 



(7) Railway Rates for Agricultural Produce. — On considering 

 this general question the Committee passed the following Resolution : — 



" That this Committee strongly urges on the Ministry the absolute 

 necessity of making representations forthwith to the proper quarter as to 

 the unduly high railway rates which exist on agricultural produce at the 

 present time, as there is no doubt that they constitute a serious handicap 

 to the agricultural industry." 



