§ Order for Third Reading read.
§ LORD LAMINGTONMy Lords, before the Bill is read a third time, I should like to ask when the Government are going to carry out their promise to grant a Select Committee on the whole subject of the sale of food?
§ * EARL FORTESCUEMy Lords, I would not, during the passing of this beneficent measure, run any risk of impeding it by addressing you upon it at an earlier stage, but in this, the last stage, 1224 I would wish to lay before your Lordships an aspect of this Bill, which I do not think has been presented to your Lordships, or, indeed, as far as I am aware, to the English public generally. Some 25 or 30 years ago I was very much struck with the words of a French writer on the subject. I forget at the moment who he was, but the words remained vividly impressed upon my memory. He began by saying—
Without the recognition of horseflesh as food for man, the old or disabled horse becomes a melancholy form of capital, wasting away day by day under the pitiless lash of his driver.He then goes on to show how the recognition of horseflesh as food for man soon causes a point to be reached when it becomes more remunerative to feed the animal up for meat than to extract the last particle of work from him by blows while he is kept in a state of starvation, as the French author said, a living but suffering skeleton. I congratulate the authors of this measure, and those who have so earnestly pressed it on to its last stage on having rendered a far more substantial service to the cause of humanity than has been rendered by many sensational writers and eloquent orators on behalf of suffering animals.
§ EARL BEAUCHAMPYour Lordships will remember that suggestions were made upon which I have to propose several verbal Amendments. You will remember that Clause 1 was retained, and the previous words with regard to registration struck out. Then I propose to insert words under which the Bill will come into operation on the 29th September next, instead of 1st January.
Read 3a (according to order), with the Amendments; further Amendments made; Bill passed, and sent to the Commons.