586 SELECT COMMITTEE ON CONTAGIOUS DISEASES BILL. 
supposes? — Under such circumstances it is possible that 
that might be the operation of the measure; but my desire 
would rather be to have a report made to some competent 
authority, as, for example, through the Board of Guardians 
to the Board of Trade, or a sectional division of the Board of 
Health. I think that there are so many well-known diffi- 
culties in the way of the treatment of cattle when labouring 
under disease, that often measures of a prophylactic nature 
might be suggested by the Board of Health to an individual 
farmer which he would not object to put in operation, and 
that with considerable advantage. 
97. Therefore, you cannot suppose that it is to the 
farmer’s interest to conceal disease? — I have never found 
that a farmer has to me individually, or any other professional 
man, concealed the amount of disease. 
98. Is it not to the farmer’s advantage to be able, if he 
has 100 beasts, to take those 100 beasts into the market, 
and if anybody suspected disease, to say, “ These have been 
certified by an inspector to be sound;” would not that facili- 
tate his sale? — Unquestionably it would. 
99 Mr. Gurdon , — And if at the same time it was known 
that out of those 100 beasts ten had dropped down from 
pleuro-pneumonia, would it not make people very shy of 
buying the other ninety, if it was once known that he had 
had the disease within a short time on his farm? — It is 
doubtless one of those things that it is exceedingly difficult 
to deal with in its various details. There is much to be said 
on both sides of the question. 
100. Mr, Ball . — Suppose he had ten drop down dead, and 
he had driven the other fifty or sixty to market, would it not 
benefit him to have those reported as pure, and the respon- 
sibility thrown on the inspector instead of himself? — There 
can be no question that if animals are sent to a market, and 
the}' are known to have come from a diseased herd, their 
value would be deteriorated ; but I think that that is rather 
an extreme view to take of a question of legislation to prevent 
the extension of contagious diseases, and I further think that 
you must deal with facts, and not with probabilities arising 
out of the existence of a disease on a farmer’s premises. If 
it is a fact that a farmer has a disease which is established 
beyond all question of doubt to be a contagious one, and more 
especially if it should be a disease which is known to be 
incubated in the system of an animal for a given time before 
it declares itself, then under such circumstances it is the 
bounden duty of the Government, for the protection of the 
interests of the country, to prevent those animals being 
