1 Ave., 1899.] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 191 
the district, may order the removal or its isolation of any farm or a dairy farm affected 
with disease which might contaminate dairy produce. ‘And in the schedule of the Act 
there are 18 diseases mentioned—8 in human beings, 10 in stock. Any produce 
may be condemned and disposed of as the Department thinks fit, and no produce which 
as been in contact with or even near atm eth persons or stock shall be sold or exposed. 
for sale, or by clause 14 the produce of stock even suspected of having ulcers or 
running sores, &c., is not to be sold. Sour milk is prohibited from sale, though the 
manager of the Silverwood factory said before the select committee, “Tf 
sour milk is prohibited from sale it will spoil a good deal of the trade; we 
dispose of a great deal of sour milk to bakers for bread-making, and it 
is generally regarded as wholesome.” ‘Then in future no one is to be allowed 
to sell by measure, and no one is to be allowed to adulterate dairy produce with 
animal, mineral, or vegetable oils, or extraneous butter fat, though good cheese can be 
made from skim milk in this way. Then the inspector can demand from the owner a 
list of his customers. Plainly this is a power which should only be used in extreme 
ceases under order from the Health Officer. Again, the fact that diseases have existed 
upon a dairy for one day is to be primd facie evidence that the owner knew of it, and 
neglect to give notice of it makes the owner liable to £100 penalty or six months’ imprison- 
ment. Manifestly, owners to be safe would have to treat their hands like niggers 
on African diamond-fields, and: strip them naked once a week at least. The penalty 
just mentioned can be inflicted upon anyone who obstructs an inspector or expert, or 
refuses to give any information or to obey the order of an inspector, or refuses to give 
any notice prescribed by the Act or Regulations. For thorough-going inspection this 
Act can hardly be beaten, butisit not alsoa reductio ad absurdum of the system itself? 
And I think that those who have had experience of inspection in Central Queensland, 
during the late tick scare, will agree with Dr. Bancroft, Health Officer for Brisbane 
in 1897, when he said before the select committee, “To give the inspector power to sit 
down here would be a terrible thing.” Of course, he said, “If you got an angelic 
form of inspector, well and good,” or “an angelic form of dairymen,” his examiner 
added. Now, if such a system of inspection were carried out, it would create a 
despotism tempered probably by the occasional examination of an inspector, especially 
as, if the experts had their way, they would eradicate disease by the compulso. 
destruction of all diseased animals, and the Acts say nothing about compensation. To 
give such powers is too much for average human nature. Inspectors are not likely 
to be angels or devils, but very average men. In fact they must be “Jack of 
all Trades” men. To properly carry out his duties, as the select committee 
pointed out, an inspector would have to be a sanitary expert, a veterinary surgeon, 
a medical man, an analyst, and a butter-taster all in one. And when we consider the 
independent class of men he would have to deal with, he would have to possess infinite 
tact and perfect firmness. In a somewhat similar case in New South Wales the 
Colonial Secretary of that colony said that not more than three such competent men 
could be found in the colony. In New Zealand they have had to import veterinary 
surgeons. If the inspectors exercised their power they would demoralise dairying and 
themselves, and to give them powers which they cannot possibly use is also to démoralise 
both. Then think of the expense. By section 18 of the Rep dTat cite it would appear that 
the industry itself is to bear the expense. Could a not too profitable industry stand 
such a system if it was properly carried out, and if the public is protected, why should 
it not share the expense? Dr. Bancroft thought it would take five inspectors doing 
nothing else to properly inspect the dairies within a radius of 10 miles of the centre 
of Brisbane. isha much we must discount the opinion of dairy experts in matters 
like this may be seen from statements made before the select committee by one well- 
known expert who said he thought the Bill entirely reasonable, and that he failed to 
find any unworkable clause init. Asked how many inspectors would be required 
under the Bill to overtake the whole colony, he said, “I think it would take half-a- 
dozen.” Half-a-dozen for a colony of 668,497 square miles! And yet when this 
expert was asked further on if new model by-laws issued by the Céntral Board of 
Health, which cover much the same ground as the Dairy Act, were enforced, would it 
not meet the case, he said, “ No.” Asked why, he replied, “You want a man to keep 
travelling through the country in the various districts to witness the cows being milked ; © 
to be on the ground almost every other day. To be there periodically, at any rate, to 
see what is being ‘done.”’ Baten ean see from this what the inspector once begun 
would develop into. We should have an inspector sitting on the cap of half 
the milking-yards of Queensland. The poor dairyman would be taxed by a 
mild, yet despotic, Government to pay an army of inspectors, and to cap it all would 
have to feed them with his own vat and whisky to keep them in good humour. And 
the inspector would probably carry rifles to “spot” stock diseased or suspected to be 
