§ MR. DUCKHAMasked the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Whether the Privy Council will enforce (with the least possible delay) the provisions of the Contagious Diseases (Animals) Act of 1878, and prohibit the importation of live animals into the United Kingdom from countries in which the foot and mouth disease prevails?
§ MR. DODSONSir, I cannot admit the assumption involved in the Question that the Act of 1878 has not been carried out by the Privy Council. That Act laid down as the general law that all foreign animals were to be slaughtered at the port of landing, subject to a positive direction to the Privy Council to admit freely animals from countries free from disease, and with a power enabling the Privy Council to prohibit importation in exceptional and special cases. The question of the hon. Member is too vague to admit of a definite answer in the affirmative or the negative. I may, however, say that the Privy Council have exercised their prohibitory powers in the case of all countries likely to send us rinderpest, that they have also, from time to time, exercised their discretion in prohibiting animals from specified ports and specified countries in which foot-and-mouth disease has been exceptionally prevalent, and that they will continue to use the discretion vested in them, subject to a deep sense of the responsibility imposed upon them.
§ MR. HENEAGEsubsequently gave Notice, in consequence of the very unsatisfactory answer given by the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, that on Monday next he would ask whether he would lay on the Table a copy of the case on which a legal opinion was taken in reference to the powers of the Government under the Act to prohibit the importation of cattle from foreign countries where there was reason to believe disease existed, as was lately mentioned by Lord Carlingford?