§ SIR JOHN KINLOCH (Perth, E.)I beg to ask the President of the Board of Agriculture whether the Government will consider the expediency of allowing the importation of store cattle into this country from the State of Virginia, a State which has always been free from pleuro-pneumonia, and situated many hundred miles distant from infected districts, seeing also that the cattle can be shipped from that State for Great Britain without touching the soil of any other State?
§ THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE (Mr. CHAPLIN,) Lincolnshire, SleafordI am informed that the statement that Virginia has always been free from pleuro-pneumonia, and that it is situated many hundred miles distant from infected districts, is inaccurate in both respects. The Report of the American Department of Agriculture for 1885 records the introduction of pleuro-pneumonia into Virginia in the summer of that year, and the Report of the American Department of Agriculture for 1887 and 1888 refers to another outbreak at the end of 1887. So lately as March 23 of the present year, a cargo of 683 animals, in which pleuro-pneumonia existed, arrived at Deptford from Baltimore, Baltimore being, I believe, less than 50 miles from the State of Virginia. In view of these circumstances, and of the fact that the Government are now prosecuting a measure for the special purpose of trying to extirpate pleuropneumonia in this country, it would seem to me most unwise to admit store cattle, as suggested by the hon. Member.