§ MR. CLARE READasked the Vice President of the Council, If there is any truth in the reports which are current on the Continent, that the restrictions upon the importation of German cattle, by which they are now consigned to separate water-side markets, are about to be removed?
§ MR. W. E. FORSTER,in reply, said, there was no truth whatever in certain statements in one German newspaper, to the effect that it would soon be announced by the British Government that cattle might be taken to the Islington Market for inspection; or in another, to the effect that when the restrictions were removed cattle, though affected with foot and mouth disease, might be taken to the Old Market, after a few formalities had been gone through. The Government would in future, and had up to this time, retained these restrictions or relaxed them according to the information it might have obtained. At present Government had no information which would induce it to relax the restrictions. He could not at all imagine how the report had got into the German newspapers.