§ Order for Second Reading read.
§ The MINISTER of AGRICULTURE (Mr. Guinness)I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."
The object of the Diseases of Animals Bill is to improve arid modernise our methods of defence against contagious diseases in animals. The Bill carries out various proposals which resulted from the recommendations of the Pretyman Committee on Foot-and-Mouth Disease which reported in 1922 and 1925. Clause 1 is based on the recommendations of the Pretyman Committee, and it would enable us to deal with foot-and-mouth disease, cattle plague and pleuro-pneumonia by means of administrative Orders. At the present time our procedure, a very rigid procedure, is laid down by the Diseases of Animals Act of 1894. In certain details the methods there prescribed have been found to be cumbersome and out of date, and to involve undue cost. We can already deal with swine fever, a minor disease compared with the three 1902 scheduled diseases which I have mentioned, by means of administrative orders, and we seek in this Clause to apply the same methods to the more serious diseases and thereby to avoid the unnecessary expense and inconvenience which are now caused by this obsolete procedure, and at the same time get the benefit of all the advances in modern scientific experience. Clause 2 repeals the obligation to slaughter animals which have been in contact with cases of cattle plague. Fortunately we have not had for many years an outbreak of cattle plague or rinderpest in this country, but it is endemic in certain parts of Eastern Europe. In 1920 it came as close to our shores as Belgium, and there is always the possibility that we may be faced with an outbreak. If such a misfortune should occur we want to avoid the waste of animal life and the heavy compensation which would be involved in a slaughter policy, and we want to be in a position to prescribe the immunising of contact animals by the method which has been used with very great success in foreign countries which have recently suffered from this plague.
Clause 3 would allow the slaughter of imported animals at the port which were found to be suffering from such a disease as tuberculosis on the order of an official of the Ministry of Agriculture. We believe this power is necessary, and I think the House will agree when I tell them that in one year we had 80 cows brought in with indurated udders, a very dangerous form of tuberculous infection.
§ Mr. GUINNESSI should have to look it up, but I know there were 80 cases. It shows that it is necessary that we should have this power and should not have to have recourse, as slow, to the powers of the local authority to deal with these dangerously infectious cases. Clause 4 would allow the charging of fees to cover cost of detention and testing of animals for certain diseases which might be suspected on importation. We are now, fortunately, free from glanders, which used to take such a very heavy toll of our horses, and we wish, by means of the Mallein test, to be able to ensure the continuance of this freedom from 1903 foreign infection. We can now impose the test at the premises of the importers, but it is at our expense, and we consider it reasonable that where animals are brought into the country the test should be performed at the expense of the importer and at the safest place, namely, the landing place where the animal was originally imported. Clause 5 is taken from a recommendation of the Pretyman Committee, and would allow a magistrate to impose heavier penalties in the case of serious offences. Since 1922, when the first recent disastrous outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease took place, by means of greater vigilante and improved administration, we have been able to effect a steady advance in the resistance of this country to foreign invasions of foot-and-mouth infection, and I hope the House will give us the further resources for which we ask for dealing with this disease and others which will help us in the fight which means so much to the British farmer, and in which Parliament and the country have always given the Minister such ready and generous support.
§ Mr. MACPHERSONDoes the Bill apply to Scotland?
§ Mr. GUINNESSYes, it does.
§ Mr. BUXTONI think this Bill takes powers which are urgently needed. I want to ask the Minister if, before the Second Reading is granted, he will tell us a little more about it and about the situation. Undoubtedly the procedure under the existing law is exceedingly cumbersome and I think, if only from my experience at the Ministry, it has been responsible for part of the very heavy cost that has fallen on the country during the last four years—in 1923 no less than £2,250,000 in connection with foot-and-mouth disease alone. Therefore undoubtedly the Bill is urgently needed. The officials of the Ministry have certainly been again and again hampered for want of more complete administrative powers and the spheres of the Ministry and of local authorities have not been adequately demarcated. The Bill, I hope, does not yield anything to compromise on that question. I want the Minister to assure us that he is taking all the powers that in his opinion the Ministry ought to have. So far as it stiffens up the powers of the 1904 Ministry the Bill is very welcome. We cannot afford any defect in our procedure at all. Diseases are vastly expensive for the loss that they inflict, quite apart from the direct cost that is incurred in dealing with them. The Bill results, I suppose, in the main from the conclusions of two Committees, the Pretyman Committee and the Leishman Committee on Research. Both those Committees were appointed during the time of the Labour Government, and I felt very fortunate in the personnel we were able to secure. I think they have very fully justified the confidence that was felt in them.
The Minister, I hope, will tell us, following the precedent set in another place when this Bill was introduced, rather more about the general situation in regard to foot-and-mouth disease, for the reason that it is the ground for asking the House to pass this Bill. The Leishman Committee as it was appointed, under Sir William Leishman, confirmed the extraordinary virulence of the germ, if it is a germ, which no one can detect, of foot-and-mouth disease. It also showed the extraordinary uncertainty of various treatments. For instance, in spite of the fearful contagiousness of the disease, rats infected with foot-and-mouth disease in close contact as a rule did not impart it to each other. But it has been established that the virulence of infection is even greater and that it remains in the blood no less than 40 days and in bone and marrow 76 days on some occasions. But these discoveries have not vet led to the cultivation of the virus. It was hoped, during our term of office, that German scientists had discovered it. That led to disappointing results, and the method of immunising is still obscure, but the general result of the research is to confirm the need of screwing up the procedure in dealing with outbreaks. We felt that a Committee directly concerned with administration was urgently needed. Captain Pretyman and others were great authorities on the subject, and the Pretyman Report makes a large number of recommendations, some of which are in the Bill, but I should like to ask the Minister if there are not one or two others which ought to be in it as well.
The main thing the Government have done in regard to foot-and-mouth disease is not to adopt the recommendations for stiffer administration but to use their 1905 administrative powers to put an embargo on foreign pig meat. That is worth consideration in connection with this Bill, because I see that in support of it in another place the Under-Secretary used the argument that the figures of outbreaks in this country and in foreign countries showed that very great success had been secured by the embargo. It appears to me that that argument is rather thin. There is no real proof in the figures, comparatively favourable to this country, that the embargo has had a marked effect. There never was any possibility of comparing the outbreaks abroad with the outbreaks here because in every period in recent times they have been immeasurably and incomparably greater abroad than here. I should like the Minister to tell us whether there is really any definite proof. It will need a much stronger one than that in favour of the embargo. The fact that the argument was used by the Government in another place makes me rather suspicious. Is there no better evidence to adduce in favour of a policy coming from a party avowedly desirous of taking Protectionist measures? To put it shortly, one feels that it is incumbent on them to give us very definite evidence that their hands are clean in that respect and that there is objective proof, quite apart from the undoubted popularity with a large section of the farmers of the embargo. Surely it would not be fair to the public to put on an embargo which would lead to a considerable rise in price unless you have some very clear evidence.
There is the further point that interests agricultural Members, that the embargo has not been an unmitigated benefit to agriculturists. It has markedly hampered the operations of the bacon factories, and one of the most hopeful movements of our time is the promotion of bacon factories, and particularly of co-operative bacon factories. A factory such as the Kiddington factory—and I think all others—has been very seriously hampered by the falling off of supplies of cheap pigs.
As to the Clauses of the Bill, it is quite true that the Pretyman Committee describes the procedure under the Act of 1894 as archaic. It used to be a kind of dual control, and that has certainly led to delay. The Committee even suggested that the action of local Committees has sometimes been dictated 1906 not purely by the public interest but by what it calls trade jealousy. That certainly shows that the Minister could make no compromise in estimating what is absolutely the most efficient system. Does the Minister by this Bill get real complete control? Under Clause 1, I would like him to tell the House whether the reference to Section 10 (5) of the principal Act indicates that powers are being retained by the local authorities which are in excess of the absolutely correct powers which should belong to them. It would be interesting also to know how far the local authorities, through their associations, have shown themselves ready to concur in the provisions of the Bill.
When we come to Clause 3, I think the Minister is quite right to lay emphasis on the question of tubercular cattle. It is only logical, now that we are beginning to deal effectively with tubercular milk, that the efforts of local authorities and the Ministry should be supported in regard to importation. So long as the efforts strictly aim at protecting the public health, everyone will support such a proposal. I hope the Minister can say that the efforts are completely and solely aimed at public health. There is nothing more important than a clean milk campaign, and I trust that if the Bill becomes law it will be a powerful reinforcement in that direction. Clause 5 seems to me as important as any in the Bill. I remember a case where neglect to report led to extraordinarily serious results and enormous public expense. Even if you take greater powers to inflict penalties, you find sometimes that magisterial benches are not sufficiently alive to the need of action. I hope, therefore, that the Minister will take steps to inform and educate the benches, by circulars, explaining to them the great urgency of using the law.
There are one or two things which the Bill does not include. The Pretyman Report, on one of its pages, summarises some of the proposals of the Committee in regard to more efficient and more rapid valuation, thereby avoiding delay in action, and it is recommended (1) that there should be a panel of valuers and (2) that a deduction of 10 per cent. from the value given ought to be the general rule when symptoms have become visible 1907 at a visit aimed at diagnosis. I do not know why the Minister should not include proposals in the Bill carrying out these recommendations. If he did so, I think he would find very wide support. The Report is rather striking with respect to one or two dangers of the system of slaughter and compensation. On page 49, there is sympathetic reference to the argument that in certain quarters money has been made out of the appearance of disease among stock and, consequently, these provisions about the amount of compensation to be given are very important.
There is one further proposal of the Committee which I should very much like to see embodied in the Bill. Among the important proposals occurs this one, that compensation ought not to be limited to the farmer who, of course, is perfectly entitled to it, because he loses perhaps very heavily in profits; but there is another set of people who lose even more heavily, namely, the workers, as occurred in the Cheshire outbreak in 1923 and 1924 when very large numbers of workers, many of them skilled, were thrown out of employment and who, according to the Committee and acccording, surely, to the moral sense of the public, are equally entitled to compensation. The Committee urged that their case is as strong as any other; surely, it is even stronger, because although the farmer suffered grievously, as a rule his loss did not mean that his children went hungry; but in very many cases so far as the workers were concerned, it actually meant the partial ruination of their lives for a time and in some cases their children actually went hungry on account of the outbreak, and there was no power to grant them compensation. A simple method is recommended by the Pretyman Committee. The Minister would find the House sympathetic if, in amending the procedure dealing with diseases, he could deal with a claim which is even more urgent than any other.
§ Mr. EVERARDAs one who has several times in the past criticised the administration of the Foot-and-Mouth Disease Regulations, I should like to congratulate the Minister on the step he has taken in bringing this Bill before 1908 the House to-day. The work of the veterinary side of the Ministry has been of the greatest advantage in inquiring into the question of foot-and-mouth disease and other animal diseases, and the Ministry in the action which it has taken recently has very materially assisted agriculturists by relieving them from the terrible scourge which has overtaken them in past years. In my own part of the country, the disease has in the past been very prevalent, and has inflicted very great hardship upon a very large community. In 1923, the actual loss on the market tolls, owing to the serious scourge of foot-and-mouth disease, was equivalent to no less than a fourpenny rate in the town of Melton Mowbray. Therefore, I sincerely congratulate the Minister on the step forward he is taking.
This Bill comes on the top of several Orders which have materially assisted in combating the disease. There are four Orders which materially affect the question we are discussing to-day. The first Order is the one thing dealing with imported packing material; the second Order enforces the keeping by farmers of a record of the destination of the stock sold; the third Order is the embargo upon fresh meat from the Continent, and the fourth Order deals with the boiling of offal from the slaughter houses. These four Orders together with this Bill will very materially assist in stamping out this terrible disease. I was very interested to read a report of what took place in the House of Lords, and the figures given by the Parliamentary Secretary with respect to foot-and-mouth disease in this country. We can congratulate ourselves very much upon the position in which we find ourselves to-day.
On looking at the figures, I find that whereas in Germany in 1924 there was an outbreak amounting to 56,000, the figures had gone up in 1926 to 187,000. In Belgium the figures have increased from 3,000 in 1925 to 35,000 in 1926. On the other hand, our figures of the disease have gone down from 1,929 outbreaks in 1923, which cost the country £2,250,000, to only 264 outbreaks in 1926, costing £188,000. I believe that this year the number of outbreaks is about half the number recorded at this time last year. Therefore, the advance we have made in this subject is a matter for great congratulation to all concerned.
1909 I am in agreement with the right hon. Gentleman opposite on the question of some reduction being made as to the animals which are actually found with disease upon them. I think the farmers of this country would generally welcome a Regulation of that sort, and I am sorry that it is not introduced in this Bill. I am glad to see that the penalties are being increased. I do not think that they have been increased quite enough, as I am perfectly convinced that the average farmer realises the enormous damage that is done by this disease, and also that any effort to conceal the disease might mean a tremendous financial cost to the neighbours and everybody else in the district. I am certain that the farmers would welcome the strictest method of ensuring that information is given when the disease is among a flock, and also making quite certain that there is an adequate fine charged when that is not done.
We have not yet absolutely identified the germ of this disease, hut we have gone a very long way towards it, and we ought to congratulate those who have been doing the research work and to express the hope that by this time next year some definite germ will have been found whereby the disease can be prevented in this country. If we spend more money on research, as we are doing, I am glad to say, through the action of the Minister, Bills of this sort will hardly be necessary in the future. The Minister has told us that rinderpest is practically non-existent, and that glanders is practically non-existent. I believe that if the germ of foot-and-mouth disease, owing to the foresight of veterinary inspectors, can be isolated, the disease will in future be nonexistent in this country.
§ Mr. A. V. ALEXANDERLike my right hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Mr. Buxton), I wish to refer to some of the things which are not in the Bill. This is a Bill to amend the Diseases of Animals Act. It is a pity that, in bringing forward legislation of this kind, the Government have not taken a more comprehensive attitude in dealing with the question of the elimination of disease and the making of the food of the people as pure as possible. We welcome the fact that, under one of 1910 the Acts, they are now paying compensation for the destruction of tuberculous cattle; but one thing which is concerning us very much is that very slight inroads are being made upon the cows which are producing tuberculous milk. Take the figures which are given to us now by the various medical authorities. Take, for example, the figures given by Dr. Nathan Raw at a recent conference in London. There were 10,000 cases under treatment for tuberculosis and over 2,000 of them were traced directly to infection by tuberculous milk. It is a great pity that we are not making greater inroads upon it and that the Government has not introduced into this Bill an extension of the amending Act of 1922. In that Act powers were given to the Minister to arrange for replenishing the herds of the country by the importation of healthy cattle from Canada. In this country we have a high percentage of tuberculous cattle, it is probably not less than 35 to 40 per cent. of our milk cows, and it is a rare thing indeed to get tuberculous cattle imported from the Dominion of Canada. The local authorities—
§ Mr. SPEAKERI have read the Bill very carefully, and do not see any reference to tuberculosis.
§ Mr. ALEXANDERWith all respect, may I draw your attention to Clause 3. In his explanation the Minister of Agriculture said that this Clause was necessary in order that he may have power to order the immediate slaughter at ports of tuberculous cattle. That is the reason why I am raising this point on the Second Reading; it may be far more difficult to raise it at a later stage of the Bill. Local authorities in all the industrial areas of the country, who are taking the matter up again, are urging either that the Minister shall alter the amending Act of 1922 and make it compulsory on the Minister to admit cows or that the right hon. Gentleman should take steps to make an Order under that Act so that we can make up the loss to our herds caused by slaughtering by the importation of healthy cattle from the Dominion of Canada.
§ Mr. GUINNESSOn that point of order, I should like to draw your attention, Mr. Speaker, to the fact that though we do propose to take powers under Clause 2 to deal with tuberculous 1911 animals at the ports, we do not, in this Bill, suggest any amendment of the Importation of Animals Act, 1922. That would be quite outside the scope of this Bill, which is limited to the amendment of the Diseases of Animals Act.
§ Mr. SPEAKERI do not think the hon. Member should argue that point at any great length.
§ Mr. ALEXANDERThe Title of the Bill says that it is
an Act to amend the Diseases of Animals Acts, 1894 to 1925.It deals with a whole series of Acts, and, therefore, I think the point of order mentioned by the right hon. Gentleman is based on a false premise. I do not wish to argue it at great length, but now, when some attempt is being made, under the payment of public money for compensation, wiping out gradually the disease in the herds of this country, I think, in order to supply the milk required by the people of this country free from tuberculosis, you should take steps to replenish the herds by importation from abroad. There is also another point referred to by the right hon. Member for Norfolk (Mr. Buxton) which is of importance in this connection. Clause 3 of this Bill gives greater power to the Minister to order slaughter at the ports. It is true that the Minister has said that he desires this Clause in order to deal with tuberculous cattle, but in connection with the administration of the 1922 Act he will be aware that great dissatisfaction is felt with the way in which animals are now ordered to be slaughtered. In some cases, the importers consider the animals should not be slaughtered. We, therefore, view with a certain amount of suspicion the powers given in this Bill, which seem to he quite general in character. By the way the Act of 1922 has been administered in connection with store cattle I should have thought that very little was lacking in the powers of the Ministry with regard to the slaughter of animals.There is also a point in connection with Clause 4, which is marked as having been introduced in another place, and underlined, in order to show that they desire to avoid any question of privilege. This is a proposal to make it possible to increase the charge by the Department in respect of animals landed at the port, if 1912 it is so desired. It is true that the Minister has said that, in the main, the Department desires this power ha order to deal more particularly with pit ponies. We have a great suspicion that the Government, with its well-known Protectionist tendency and a general power of this sort, will not be long before they apply all kinds of tests in order to prevent the landing in this country of cattle which are really necessary for the maintenance of a supply of fresh meat to the working-class population. I hope the Minister of Agriculture will be able to reassure us on that point. Then, again, we who are connected with the retail trade in supplying the consumer with fresh meat have experienced great difficulty since the Ministry placed an embargo on the importation of pig meat. It has caused an extraordinary rise in the price and, moreover, has seriously handicapped bacon factories. One or two people who are interested in bacon factories have communicated with me on the matter.
If it was ever intended by she Ministry to be anything more than a protection against disease, it has been an actual protection for the farmer and has secured the rise in prices which has taken place. It is extraordinary that farmers have not taken more advantage of these high prices and supplied meat in the place of that which was formerly imported. Those who are engaged in buying for immediate supply fresh meat or bacon to the consumers of the country know that not only have prices gone up, but they show no tendency of coming down, because farmers have not taken sufficient steps to make good from home supplies the losses which have been sustained by the operation of the embargo. I feel great difficulty in tracing the actual reduction in the, number of outbreaks in this country, which we all welcome, to the working of this particular embargo, and I agree with my right hon. Friend that more detailed information is necessary as to how the continuance of the embargo is going to help in the reduction of these outbreaks or he of benefit to the community.
§ Mr. LAMBI desire to support the Minister of Agriculture in his request to the House to give the Bill a Second Reading. All agriculturists, and the general public, are well aware of the 1913 great necessity for dealing with these cases with expedition, and any power which the Minister may deem necessary to enable these cases to be dealt with in their earliest stages should receive the assent of every hon. Member in the House. Acts of Parliament passed so long ago as 1894 cannot be expected to be suitable for dealing with the position at the present. Few people realise how much greater is the risk of infection to-day, and it will increase, as compared with years ago because of the greater facilities for transport which obtain to-day between the Continent, other countries and Great Britain. Undoubtedly the greater facilities for transport to-day increase the risk of the importation of disease from those countries where, unfortunately, they not only exist but are increasing. We have some cause for satisfaction that in this country, with our present powers, we have been able to reduce the number of outbreaks.
The hon. Member for Hillsborough (Mr. A. V. Alexander) has referred to the Order which was made dealing with the importation of carcases, and has charged the farmers of this country with not having done enough to repair the loss of supplies caused by that Order. Unfortunately, pigs cannot be produced like rabbits out of a hat, and if he will give the farmers reasonable time, I am sure they will make up the deficiency. A reference has been made to the loss which agriculturists suffer through the prevalence of this disease. It is not only the agriculturists who have to suffer this loss. It is a loss to the community as a whole as consumers. They undoubtedly feel the effects of these outbreaks, and, further, the taxpayers of the country are grieviously hit by the expenditure which it has been necessary to incur. There is a loss to the farmer, a loss to the consumer and a loss to the taxpayer, and we should spare no efforts to reduce disease. I deplore the fact that the hon. Member for Hillsborough attempted to bring into this discussion a very acrimonious subject and one which would receive very great opposition from agriculturists. I do not wish to enter into that subject, except to say that I deplore the fact that he introduced it, because it may tend to delay the passage of this Bill if we attempted to include such a contentious matter in this Bill 1914 I feel confident the Minister has the support of the whole agricultural community in bringing forward this Bill, and I hope the House will give it a Second Reading.
§ 6.0 p.m.
§ Sir DOUGLAS NEWTONThe hon. Member for Hillsborough (Mr. A. V. Alexander), in the course of his able speech, suggested that there would he no necessity to bring in a Diseases of Animals Act—or it almost amounted to that suggestion—if steps were taken to amend existing legislation with regard to the importation from other sources of live cattle into this country. As he developed that argument, perhaps it will be permissible for me, in reply, to refer to certain figures. Last year only 53,000 cattle were so imported into this country, and it would be unreasonable to think that we would ever be able to import so many cattle from abroad as to enable us to replace our diseased cattle in this country. Moreover, we have in this country the healthiest cattle in the world, and we are exporting them to these very countries from which the hon. Member wants to import. I desired to draw attention only to this one point, because I think it is not quite fair to suggest that a remedy can be found in this direction for diseases which are inherent in this country, and which these other animals would quickly catch if they were imported into and fed and kept in this part of the world. I hope that the Bill will receive the Second Reading that it deserves. The Bill has the backing of the whole agricultural community behind it, and I believe it will do something to assist in dealing with the important question of the diseases of animals.
§ Mr. GUINNESSHon. Members opposite have asked for information as to the present position of foot-and-mouth disease, especially with reference to the action which we took last year in imposing an embargo on meat imported from continental countries. The improvement in regard to our resistance to the invasions of disease which have been taking place at intervals throughout the heavy infection of the last few years in Europe, is very remarkable. The number of outbreaks that we have had in the first 2½ months of this year is only 21, as against 45 outbreaks in the corresponding 2½ months up to 14th March of 1915 last year. But those figures do not show the whole improvement, because it is important to distinguish between primary outbreaks, for which there is no explanation, except untraced infection from abroad, and secondary outbreaks which may be definitely linked up by means of human carriers or other direct infection between one infected place and another. If you compare the number of initial outbreaks which took place in the first 4 months of last year before the embargo with the number this year, you will find that last year there were 15 initial outbreaks, and that this year there have been only three. So it does look, seeing that we have brought down the initial outbreaks to one-fifth of what they were last year, as if the improvement is due to the action taken under the embargo.
The embargo was imposed because of an outbreak at Carluke, where certain infected carcases from Europe were found in a bacon factory. The effluents from that bacon factory infected the sewage farm, and the animals on the sewage farm contracted the disease. There was strong evidence that the infection was carried by the effluent from the factory, and, acting on that, we imposed the embargo. The Report to which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Northern Norfolk (Mr. Buxton) referred, the Report of the Foot-and-Mouth Disease Research Committee, confirmed the action which we took, because in that Report there is an account of experiments which reproduced the condition which had occurred at Carluke. Healthy pig carcases were splashed with the infected blood of other pigs, or smeared with it in another case. They were kept at a temperature of 15 degrees, and four days afterwards rinsings were taken. Those rinsings, which reproduced the condition of the effluent at Carluke, were found to be capable of infecting healthy animals with foot-and-mouth disease. So I think that in that Report we have strong confirmation of the view that we took as to the causation of the Carluke outbreak.
It is quite true that in that Report there is very disquieting information about the infectivity of bone marrow. We cannot possibly justify keeping out our importation of foreign bacon and overseas supplies of chilled and frozen 1916 meat from the Argentine. Fortunately these imports are free from the risks which apply to the fresh blood on Continental carcases. It is a trade of such enormous dimensions that if the stamping out of foot-and-mouth disease involved the terrific public sacrifice that any such policy entailed, the public would probably say, We cannot stamp out foot-and-mouth disease, and we must just face the evil." So we have to deal with the bone marrow danger, which is only a theoretical danger after all, shown in the laboratory, but of which we have no confirmation in practical experience. We have to deal with this theoretical danger by a different method. We have issued an Order to try to obviate the danger from infected marrow, by imposing an obligation on all those who give swill made from meat and bones to the pig, to see that it is thoroughly boiled before it is consumed. I think that the embargo policy was absolutely justified, and I do not agree with the hon. Member for Hillsborough (Mr. Alexander) that the effect on prices has been very serious. It is quite true that in London, as the Metropolitan market was so largely dependent on imported Continental pig meat, there was a very considerable dislocation in the early weeks, but matters are now adjusting themselves, since alternative sources of supply have been de eloped, and there has not been any corresponding rise in price in Birmingham or Manchester, where the markets have all through been far more dependent on home-grown sources of supply.
The right hon. Member for Northern Norfolk asked why we had not carried out certain recommendations of the Pretyman Committee. He mentioned the Committee's suggestion that there should be panels of valuers in cases of slaughter. That was very carefully considered. It was felt that if you had panels of valuers every valuer would send in a claim to be included. Every farmer, on the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease, would be tempted to ask for the valuer whom he knew, and there was a great likelihood that the Exchequer would suffer. Apart from that, it is all important to get immediate slaughter. You cannot wait for your valuation. For these reasons we have felt it better to retain the existing system of valuers appointed by the Ministry—valuers who can be called in at 1917 the shortest possible notice to assess the market value of the animal, and we have reached this decision in consultation with the Pretyman Committee, who are, I think, convinced of the strength of our arguments. The right hon. Gentleman asked also why we did not accept the recommendation to make a deduction of 10 per cent. from the value of all diseased animals which were slaughtered. We do not think that any such change would be equitable. If the owner of animals where an outbreak takes place is guilty of any offence, he can be dealt with under the powers of the Minister of Agriculture to withhold compensation for any offence in relation to animals, and we are careful not to impose this penalty unless we can base the decision on a conviction in the Law Courts, where the man's case would have been heard and where he would not have been found guilty except on due evidence.
The right hon. Gentleman also pressed the case of agricultural workers who were thrown out of employment by outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease. I think that a good many of these arguments about unemployment have been based on a misunderstanding as to the basis of compensation. We do not pay compensation for the farmers' losses. We pay the market price for the animals which we seize for slaughter. The farmer has many other incidental losses, for which he gets no consideration whatever. He may have fat stock ready for market, which are withheld from the market at heavy loss to himself for many weeks. He may have cows in milk and be prevented from marketing his supplies. If we are going to give compensation for indirect losses, we shall be embarking upon a course which will lead very much further than the consideration merely of the claim of the agricultural labourer, and we shall inevitably have to extend the calls on the Exchequer in the interests of the farmer as well.
§ Mr. BUXTONIs not hardship the basis in both cases, and does not the Pretyman Committee, basing its statement on that, say that unemployment is as great a hardship to the agricultural workers as the loss of slaughtered stock is to the employers?
§ Mr. GUINNESSThat may be the basis which the Pretyman Committee thought would be reasonable, but the 1918 actual basis of existing legislation is the market value of animals which have been seized for slaughter, and there has been no consideration of any indirect hardship apart from the assessment of that market value. The hon. Member for Hillsborough raised the question of the importation of non-pedigree breeding stock. I am afraid we cannot possibly reopen that matter. It was considered at the Imperial Conference in 1923 and the Canadian Government were informed—
§ Mr. SPEAKERThe right hon. Gentleman is taking the fly a little too readily. I ruled that subject out of order.
§ Mr. GUINNESSI am grateful to you, Sir, for reminding me that I need not follow all these very contentious points. Our Bill is admittedly limited in its scope. There are no doubt other provisions which hon. Members opposite would like to see included in it but we do not think they are necessary for the efficient administration of our defence against animal diseases and we certainly cannot possibly accept the very contentious extensions which have been pressed by them.
§ Mr. ALEXANDERMay we have a word about Clause 4, in which it seems the Ministry are taking very general powers?
§ Mr. GUINNESSThe hon. Member's point on Clause 4 was that we might test for other diseases. There is no thought of testing store cattle with tuberculin but we certainly ought to test pedigree animals which are brought in far breeding purposes. I think where we test with tuberculin it is reasonable under this Clause that we should be entitled to get the cost from the importer. It is not only with tuberculin but there is another disease known as dourine with very serious danger to this country, and there is a very hopeful method of testing in that connection which we also want to use. Therefore we want to keep this Clause in its present form so that it will enable us to charge fees for any of these tests which we may find it necessary to impose at the ports in the interest of keeping out infection.
§ Question, "That the Bill be now read a Second time," put, and agreed to.
§ Bill read a Second time, and committed lo a Standing Committee.