290 The Report of the Royal Commission on Horse-Breeding. 
I think it will be most convenient to look at the evidence 
under the following headings : — (1) general working, (2) stallions, 
(3) thoroughbreds versus cocktails, (4) mares, (5) hereditary dis- 
ease and conformation, (6) roaring. 
From the outset two great difficulties confronted the Com- 
missioners. First, they had to provide facilities for breeding 
high-class half-bred horses — facilities which had almost ceased 
to exist ; secondly, they had to induce breeders and farmers, 
and especially small farmers, to make use of these facilities. 
To meet the first they had to provide high-class sound stallions; 
to meet the second they had to devise some means by which the 
services of such stallions could be secured at a fee which the 
tenant-farmer could afford to pay. The second of these initial 
difficulties leads me up most naturally to my first heading. 
I. General Working. 
I need not here explain the premium system. Its principle 
is explicitly stated in the first Report of the Commission, 1 dated 
December 20, 1887, and still animates their policy. Moreover, 
it is well understood by everybody who is likely to read this 
paper. But the success of a premium system depends, not 
upon the simplicity or explicitness of its principle, but upon the 
smoothness and symmetry of its detailed working in the country 
districts. As several of the witnesses examined are or have 
been members of the District Committees who carry out these 
most essential arrangements, we are now able to test accurately 
the machinery provided by the " adequate rules and regula- 
tions " referred to in the Commissioners' Eeport, and how far 
that machinery is workable. 
Now, the evidence we have upon the general objects and 
purposes of the Commission, and the way we have set about 
carrying them out, is most encouraging. The approval (subject, 
of course, to modifications and suggestions) is practically unani- 
mous, in some cases almost enthusiastic. Captain Heygate, it is 
true, takes a gloomy "bad's the best" view 2 of the whole proceed- 
1 " Your Commissioners have come to the conclusion, having regard to the 
amount of the funds at their disposal, that they will best be expended in the 
forthcoming year in premiums for thoroughbred stallions suitable for getting 
'half-bred horses ' of general utility, to be offered at a Show in conjunction 
with that of the Royal Agricultural Society. ... It appears to your Commis- 
sioners that, by a system of premiums carefully guarded by adequate rules 
and regulations, some of the difficulties which have hitherto stood in the way 
of breeders of horses (especially small occupiers of land) in seonring the 
services of sound stallions, may be removed." (Parliamentary Paper C. 5419 
of Session 1888, p. vi.) 
• Answer to Question 3194. 
