228 
PARLIAMENTARY INTELLIGENCE. 
the case of three outbreaks, one in Eastern New York, one on 
Staten Island, and one in New Jersey. At present it excites 
little apprehension, but we are asleep over a smouldering volcano. 
Spreading from the port of New York it has already gained a 
substantial hold upon different states, including the district of 
Columbia, and has invaded and been repeatedly expelled from 
two more, and it is only necessary that it should reach the 
sources of our stock supplies in the West to infest our railway 
cars and Eastern States generally. . . . England has lost over 
10,000,000 dols. from rinderpest in the present century, but she 
has lost hundreds of millions from the less dreaded lung fever.” 
He concludes by imploring the Grovernment to eradicate this 
plague at once. The Lord President did not feel justified in 
excluding, upon the information before him, the import of live 
cattle except for slaughter from the United States until he had 
conclusive proof of what the nature of this lung disease was, and 
that there was a real danger of pleuro-pneumonia being brought 
into this country from the States, there being no single case of 
that disease being brought from the United States up to the 
26th of January, 1879. During the last three weeks pleuro¬ 
pneumonia of a contagious character has been detected in three 
cargoes of live cattle, brought over in the steamships Dominion 
and Ontario, from Portland, and the Istrian, from Boston. An 
order was, therefore, issued, prohibiting import of live cattle 
from the United States after the 3rd of March, but not from 
Canada, which is not only quite free from disease, but has recently 
issued an order prohibiting the import of live cattle from the 
United States. Twelve cargoes have arrived since that of the 
Ontario, all healthy, except in the case of the Istrian. The date 
of the 3rd of March was fixed, as it was considered only fair to 
allow cargoes shipped at the time of the order to be landed, if 
healthy. If any disease exists among them, all will be 
slaughtered. It is hoped that by the 3rd of March a foreign 
animals wharf will be opened at Birkenhead with every accommo¬ 
dation for the slaughter of animals coming from the United 
States. On the Liverpool side ample accommodation will be 
provided by the same date for the lairage, and, if necessary, the 
slaughter of animals from unscheduled countries, and the present 
inconvenient landing place be abandoned. I will lay the corre¬ 
spondence asked for, together with the report I have alluded to, 
upon the table of the House. 
Mr. TV. F. Forster asked whether the information referred to 
was known to the Grovernment in time to be utilised in the 
preparation of the measure of last year. 
Lord G. Hamilton replied that it was in the possession of the 
Lord President in November last. 
