4 
226 
PARLIAMENTARY INTELLIGENCE. 
CONTAGIOUS DISEASES (ANIMALS) ACT. 
House or Commons, February 1 Uh . 
Mr. Clake Read moved for a select committee to inquire into 
the operation of the Contagious Diseases (Animals) Act, and the 
constitution of the Veterinary Department of the Privy Council. 
He stated, as showing the importance of this matter, that within 
the last twenty years the price of beef and mutton had almost 
doubled, while that of pork had remained almost stationary. No 
doubt this was partly .to be accounted for by the increase of 
the population ; but the principal causes were the cattle plague of 
1865, and the continual outbreaks since that period of pleuro¬ 
pneumonia and foot-and-mouth disease. Last year in Norfolk alone 
there were 200,000 cases of foot-and-mouth disease, involving a 
loss of 2,800,000 lbs. of meat; and there had been a computation 
that in the county of Hereford the money lost amounted to j£ 100,000. 
He was quite of opinion that the Privy Council should have power 
to send down inspectors to farms on which there were animals 
suffering from contagion, with authority, not only to order those 
animals to be slaughtered, but all animals that were contiguous, 
and that the compensation should be paid, not out of the county 
rates, but out of the imperial exchequer. He quoted statistics 
showing that pleuro-pneumonia was greatly on the increase, and 
complained that the veterinary department were above receiving any 
suggestion, He expressed his belief that the hold of the ship was 
the place where the foot-and-mouth disease was generated, and sug¬ 
gested that this might be prevented by better ventilation. He also 
complained of the injurious delays in the transport of cattle on 
railways, and instanced one case in which some animals which were 
sent of!' from Norwich to Deal on the Monday morning did not 
arrive till 2 o’clock on the Wednesday afternoon, having had no 
food or water in the interval ; and another case in which some 
heifers sent to him from Aberdeen on the Monday did not arrive 
till the following Thursday. He suggested that it was greatly to 
the interest of the community to encourage the dead meat trade, 
which the butchers seemed to be prejudiced against, and that it 
might be regulated like the fish trade was—by telegraph. The 
expense of the Act was from £10,000 to 3612,000 a year, and it 
had been stated by the chairman of the Central Committee that the 
money might as well have been thrown into the sea. In the Com¬ 
mittee he proposed he hoped to see several Irish members, looking 
at the enormous amount of cattle imported from Ireland. In 
Norfolk alone they took 40,000 Irish store stock annually, and it 
was most essential that they should have the views of Irish breeders 
before them. He, therefore, proposed a slight alteration in the 
notice of motion, namely, to extend the inquiry to the Cattle Dis- 
