§ MR. SEXTONI beg to ask the President of the Board of Agriculture whether he is aware that heavy loss is being inflicted upon farmers, cattle dealers, and Shipping Companies connected with Belfast and the County Antrim by the mode in which the provisions of the Contagious Diseases (Animals) Acts are being applied in certain ports of Scotland; whether, in reply to the following question from Belfast—
Can cattle from this county (which is free from disease), accompanied by declaration and certificate, and landed from the steamer, at the Port of Ayr, into railway waggons, without trespassing on the shire or burgh of Ayr, and railed through to Fife, be admitted?583 the clerk to the Local Authority of Fife wired in reply, on Wednesday last, "No, cannot be admitted"; whether all the other ports used in the cattle trade from Belfast to Scotland are, like Ayr, closed against that trade at present, so that Irish cattle are shut out of Scotland because the Scotch ports are situate in infected areas; and what measures will be adopted in regard to a state of things injurious not only to the farmers of Antrim, who have a large surplus stock, with a scarcity of feeding, but also to the dealers, the Shipping Companies, and the farmers in Scotland?
§ MR. CHAPLINI am aware that loss—and I am afraid very serious loss—must have been inflicted on the various interests referred to in the first paragraph of the question, and I greatly regret it; but such loss is inseparable, I fear, from the measures which have been necessary to check the spread of foot-and-mouth disease. In reply to the third paragraph of the question, no port of either England or Scotland is closed against the Irish trade, but no animals of any description are allowed to leave one of the ports—namely, Glasgow—at present, because that city has recently been a dangerous centre of the disease, and I am advised that it would not at present be safe to open it; on the other hand, Irish cattle can be landed at Greenock, and passed through Glasgow without being untrucked to any other part of Scotland that is willing to receive them. I have no knowledge of the correspondence referred to in the second paragraph of the question; and if Irish cattle are not admitted into Fife it is not due to any regulations at the port, but to orders passed by the Local Authority, forbidding the entry of animals into their district for their own protection. It would be manifestly impossible for me to interfere with the discretion of Local Authorities in that respect, when, by doing so, I might be the means of introducing disease into their district. I am perfectly alive, however, to the immense importance of the Irish cattle trade; and I hope, if there should be no further outbreaks, the difficulties under which it is conducted at present will most of them disappear.