HC Deb 28 February 1911 vol 22 cc341-2W
Earl WINTERTON

asked the President of the Local Government Board, what steps have been taken at the Channel ports to medically examine persons arriving from districts in Eastern Europe where plague exists?

Mr. BURNS

The Local Government Board's Order of 1907 requires the Customs Officer, on the arrival of a ship from a foreign port, to ascertain whether the ship is an infected ship, or has come from an infected port, and to question the captain. At the present time the only district in Eastern Europe known to be infected with plague is in the Government of Astrakhan, on the Asiatic borders, an area inhabited by nomadic tribes, who are unlikely to travel to these islands by train and the Channel passage.