IMPORTATION OF CANADIAN CATTLE.

HC Deb 29 May 1894 vol 24 cc1611-24

MR. W. LONG (Liverpool, West Derby)

said, he very much regretted the absence of his right hon. Friend the Member for the Sleaford Division (Mr. Chaplin), who had put a Notice on the Paper indicating his intention of calling attention to the importation of Canadian cattle. In consequence of his unavoidable absence, his right hon. Friend had asked him to draw attention to the position in which the question stood. Nobody in the House was more conversant with the question than his right hon. Friend, and his absence was to be regretted, because had he been present he would have brought to the consideration of the question not only the charms of his personal presence but the force of his personal experience. The question was one of very pressing importance, and he thought that those who were interested in agricultural questions were justified in believing that it was necessary to call the attention of the House to it. He hoped that the President of the Board of Agriculture (Mr. Gardner) would accept from him the declaration that in raising the question he was animated by no desire whatever to impugn the right hon. Gentleman's action since he had occupied his present official position. On the contrary, he believed the right hon. Gentleman had uniformly done his best to protect agricultural interests. At the same time, the right hon. Gentleman was necessarily exposed to very great pressure to withdraw what some people naturally regarded as objectionable restrictions, and the agricultural Members on the Opposition side of the House wished to give the right hon. Gentleman an assurance that they were anxious to support him, not in excluding the importation of cattle where there was no suspicion of disease, but in securing to the herds of this country that immunity from disease which could only be secured by preventing the importation of cattle from countries where any suspicion of disease existed. The justification for the action which he (Mr. Long) was taking was to be found in a statement made by the right hon. Gentleman the Minister for Agriculture (Mr. Gardner) on the 23rd of April last, in reply to a question. The right hon. Gentleman then stated that he proposed to institute an examination which would not be of a protracted character, and that if it had certain results he would remove the restrictions. The contention he (Mr. Long) submitted to the House was that pleuro-pneumonia was a disease of so peculiar a character and was so difficult of detection, besides being frequently so long latent in an animal, that it was impossible to remove the restrictions without running some risk of having an importation of the disease into this country. The right hon. Gentleman had stated that since last June there had been three or four cases of this disease, that the difficulty of detection was extremely great, and that the disease was in Canada.

MR. H. GARDNER

was understood to dissent.

MR. W. LONG

said, he thought the right hon. Gentleman would, at all events, admit that his Department had stated that the disease was in Canada. If it were the case that the authorities in Canada prevented animals which had a suspicious appearance from being sent across, and if it was the case that it was very difficult to detect the disease in the living animal, he thought it would be admitted that the mere fact that cases had been discovered recently rendered the removal of the existing restrictions unjustifiable. In a letter from the Department of Agriculture to the Secretary for the Colonies on the l5th of August, 1893, the following statement occurred:— There is abundant evidence that contagious pleuro-pneumonia may remain dormant during a lengthened period, and it was stated in the evidence given to the Departmental Committee in 1888 that cases had been known of the development of the disease after no less a period than 15 months. Hon. Members knew that there was recently in the Isle of Thanet a case of pleuro-pneumonia which had been dormant since last August. The right hon. Gentleman had denied that he had himself expressed the opinion that pleuro-pneumonia was still in Canada. The right hon. Gentleman, however, was reported in the Parliamentary Debates of August 3, 1893, to have said— We agree that there is a disease in Canada-Canadians say that it is not contagious pleuro-pneumonia. We say it is. The right hon. Gentleman had seemed to indicate that under certain circumstances he might be induced to withdraw the existing restrictions. They were anxious not to press him —and he (Mr. Long) was sure he spoke for every agriculturist on that side of the House—for a declaration which, in his opinion, would prejudice his action, but the right hon. Gentleman would admit they were entitled to know now the policy of the Government with regard to this important question. Many agriculturists of the country were compelled to make their arrangements for the year now, and they should know at once whether or not their stock was to be open to the risk of infection. The right hon. Gentleman had been exposed to pressure from quarters which they might have expected to be favourable to British agriculture. A correspondence had taken place between the Colonial Office and the Board of Agriculture, in which the Colonial Office sought to induce the Board to remove the existing restrictions. It was clear from the correspondence that the Secretary of State for the Colonies thought himself justified in attempting to dictate to the Minister for Agriculture what should be the policy of his Department. The right hon. Gentleman, he understood, considered either that there was no risk at all or very small risk of the importation of pleuro-pneumonia from Canada. But the latest information received by his right hon. Friend the Member for Sleaford went to show that Canadians themselves admitted the existence of disease and the risk of infection in some quarters of the Dominion. The desire of the Government was, he understood, that the food supply of this country should be abundant and cheap, but that object would not suffer by carefully restricting the importation of cattle from countries where the disease existed.

He believed himself that by insisting on slaughter at the port of debarkation they would do more to cheapen the supply of meat than they would by any other process they could adopt. It was well known that if meat was imported dead or slaughtered at the port of debarkation it must be rapidly got rid of, and sold in the nearest market that offered, and in all probability it was disposed of cheaper than meat imported alive, and kept until it could be got rid of in a market prepared for it. He did not think that any argument could be advanced for this restriction on the sale of cheap food for the people. He quite admitted there should not be any restriction unless they could show there was risk of disease. With regard to Canadian cattle, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Sleaford had placed in his hand a copy of a Montreal paper of the 27th of April, in which there was an article on this subject, in the course of which it was stated— It is only a short time since one of our prominent cattle shippers stated to the writer, in the presence of others, that he would undertake to prove there was more disease in Canadian herds than there was in American herds. That was the opinion of a Canadian writer writing only a few weeks ago, and the right hon. Gentleman would find there were large numbers of people in Canada who candidly admitted that there was this disease, and that there was the greatest difficulty, even with the exercise of every precaution, in preventing an invasion of this disease from their neighbours. In view of this, and having regard to the fact that the breeding, raising and fattening of cattle was almost the only industry which was remunerative now left to the British farmer, the right hon. Gentleman if he were to do anything which would lead to a recurrence in this country of the disease which was so disastrous in days gone by, would be striking a lasting blow at the existence of this great industry, which he was sure the right hon. Gentleman as well as they was anxious to protect and promote. If the right hon. Gentleman did not feel himself to be in a position to give the House an assurance that night that the existing restrictions upon the importation of Canadian cattle would not be removed, he hoped that, in view of the fact that Her Majesty's Government were about to take the whole time of the House, the right hon. Gentleman would undertake that the restrictions should not be removed without the Government giving the House an opportunity of discussing the matter.

* THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE (Mr. H. GARDNER,) Essex, Saffron Walden

said, he was sure that the House would agree that the Government had nothing to complain of in the speech to which they had just listened. The hon. Gentleman had spoken, as he always did, with great moderation, and had put his points before the House with great clearness, and he should be the last, man to find fault with the hon. Gentleman for taking the opportunity of raising this question, which he, for one, admitted to be of a most important character. He was glad to find that the way in which the hon. Gentleman regarded the matter did not differ in the slightest from the way in which the Government regarded it. They looked upon the administration of these Acts solely from one point, and that was for the protection of the herds of this country from disease. They looked upon this matter from no other point of view whatever. He did not wish to raise any contentious matter, but it had been stated in that House and elsewhere that it was desirable that the Government should adopt a drastic policy in regard to this subject, not for the purpose of keeping out cattle disease, but because harm might come to the farmers of this country by the lowering of the price of meat if cattle were to be imported, otherwise than for slaughter at the ports, from the United States as well as from Canada. That, however, was a position which he altogether repudiated, and which he believed the hon. Gentleman would also repudiate, and, as he had already stated, the sole object of the Government in enforcing these Acts was to prevent the introduction of cattle disease. The hon. Gentleman had referred to the correspondence which had passed between his Department and the Colonial Office. He thought, with all respect to the hon. Gentleman, that he forgot when he alluded to the action of the Colonial Office that Canada was still an important portion of the British Empire, and which, moreover, was represented in the Im- perial Parliament by his noble Friend the Secretary of State for the Colonies. It was, therefore, a most natural and proper action on the part of the Colonial Office to communicate to the Board of Agriculture the views of the Dominion Government on this subject.

MR. W. LONG

The right hon. Gentleman entirely mistakes me. I did not suggest it was not right of the Colonial Department to communicate their views to the Board of Agriculture. What I suggested was that it was highly improper of the Colonial Office to dictate to the Board of Agriculture what should be the policy of that Board with regard to British agriculture. That is a wholly different matter.

* MR. H. GARDNER

did not see where the dictation came in. What the hon. Gentleman had most at heart was that there should be no unrestricted importation of Canadian cattle, because he considered there was danger to the herds of this country in consequence. His noble Friend the Secretary of State for the Colonies very properly put before the Board of Agriculture the views of the Dominion Government on the subject, but as at the present moment no action had been taken in regard to the admission of Canadian cattle, he could not see how that communication was, in any sense, to be considered as dictation, nor how the agricultural interests had in any way suffered by that correspondence. The hon. Gentleman in his remarks seemed to think that because there was a case of pleuro-pneumonia found amongst cattle landed at Deptford in last October that therefore the time was too short for them to take off any restrictions in regard to the admission of cattle into this country. The decision which the Minister in charge of this matter had to take was not wholly based upon the fact that cases of disease came into this country, though that was, of course, an important factor. It was necessary for the Minister to take many other factors into consideration as well as the fact of an animal having arrived in this country which was proved to have pleuro-pneumonia. It must be a very conceivable case to the hon. Gentleman that by some accident an animal might come over the borders of the United States. The Canadian Government might subsequently fortify their restrictions against the United States to the satisfaction of the Government of this country; and many facts might come to light which might cause the Minister in charge of the Board of Agriculture to be perfectly satisfied that there was absolutely no danger of the introduction of disease at all, in spite of the fact that some months before an isolated case of disease might have occurred. Again, there might be no cases of diseased cattle in Canada, and yet the information in his possession might be such that the Minister would think it his duty to withdraw the privilege of free entrance. He could assure the hon. Gentleman and the House that in taking any action he had taken on the subject his action had not been based solely upon the consideration of whether disease came in or whether it did not come in; but it was taken upon all the circumstances as known to him. He must say that, in regard to any decision he might have to take, he was not in a position at the present moment to make any definite promise on the subject. The hon. Gentleman knew as well as he did that in the administration of these Acts they could not lay down what was going to happen possibly six months, or it might be a year, hence; but that they must consider the whole of the circumstances from time to time, and take their decision upon them. With regard to the question of cheap food, he agreed with the hon. Gentleman that the prohibition of the importation of these store cattle would probably not raise the price of meat one farthing; but, on the other hand, it might raise the price of store cattle, and there were many dealers and graziers who, when the price of stock was rising, as it was at the present moment, were very anxious that their views should be considered, and, though they might not be authorities on the agricultural interests of the country, they were still gentlemen whose views ought to be taken into consideration. He could promise the hon. Gentleman one thing, and that was, that the policy of the Government on this subject was to administer this law in such a way as to protect the agricultural interest from any danger of disease; and as long as he remained at the Board of Agriculture, if there was any doubt as to disease being imported into this country, he should always act in favour of the home country in preference to any other.

COLONEL GUNTER (York, W.R., Barkstone Ash)

said, he rose to support the Minister for Agriculture. Representing as he did a large agricultural district of Yorkshire, where cattle were largely bred, he would like to say there was one point which had not been mentioned and which was this. Not only might cattle from Canada bring disease into this country, but disease might be propagated on board the ships in which they were sent. The very circumstances of the case—the number of cattle which were huddled together, the atmosphere they breathed, and the state they were in when landed at the ports, must engender fever, and fever was the prelude of pneumonia. It was well-known that pneumonia in the human being was contagious, and in cattle why should it not also be? In 1890, 8,500 cattle died and were thrown overboard on their way from Canada and America to this country. They might imagine, therefore, the state of the cattle when lauded at the various ports. They were all in favour of having fat cattle brought over and enabling poor people to get meat at as reasonable a price as they could, but what they did object to was store stock being brought over and allowed to go about this country. Why should they run this risk? Their herds and flocks were clear of disease, and why should they run the risk of having disease disseminated by cattle being brought over? If they took the statistics of the meat supply of England and Wales they would find that 70 per cent. of the cattle were furnished from this country, leaving 30 per cent. which were imported, of which only 10 per cent. were landed at the ports in a healthy state, and out of that number scarcely 1 per cent. were sent to the country. But it was this 1 per cent. they were afraid of. Up to February, 1892, all along the eastern portions of France foot-and-mouth disease raged, but it never entered France owing to the Regulations enforced in that country. In February, 1892, the Regulations were taken off, and in a very short time 404 districts in that country were impregnated with the disease and 43,000 animals were affected. Fancy the expense to the country in stamping that out! Take the last outbreak in Scotland. In 1890 there were 79 cases from one cargo of Canadian cattle, and it cost something like £1,000 or more to stamp it out. What they wanted was to keep disease away, and to protect the country and the farmers from having all their markets stopped, and inconvenience and cost thus entailed in stamping out disease. He felt sure the Minister for Agriculture would do his very best to keep disease out of the country.

* SIR J. LENG (Dundee)

observed that in Scotland, as in England, there was great complaint of agricultural depression, but a great majority of the agriculturists in Scotland looked to the importation of Canadian store cattle as a means of meeting that depression. They knew by experience that these cattle were worth from £4 to £5 per head to them. In Aberdeenshire alone that represented £80,000 per annum, distributed chiefly among the tenant farmers. They benefited to that extent; the landed proprietors benefited to that extent, and it was not from Scotland that any appeal came for the imposition of these restrictions. But it must not be supposed that the Scottish farmers were more anxious for the importation of disease than the English farmers. They had had experience of cattle disease as well as the English farmers. In no part of the Kingdom, for instance, was rinderpest more severe and destructive than it was in the counties with which he was connected; and if the agriculturists of Scotland believed—as they did not believe—that the removal of these restrictions would tend to promote the dissemination of disease and the destruction of their herds, they would be as strong as hon. Gentlemen opposite in asking that those restrictions should be continued. But they had not the fear. They sincerely believed that what was said to be contagious pleuro-pneumonia in Canada was not the type of contagious pleuro-pneumonia which some considered it to be. In fact, they did not believe it was contagious at all; and they were fortified in that belief by the strongest opinions of eminent veterinary surgeons who were second to none in the world in their knowledge of cattle diseases. The hon. Gentleman who last spoke said there had been 79 cases in Scotland from the outbreak to which he had referred. That he denied. There were supposed to be two cases, but the cattle which were reported from these two vessels were distributed in 79 centres, and they were destroyed under the Orders of the Board of Agriculture, for the purpose of preventing any supposed danger. Allusion had been made to the correspondence between the Colonial Office and the Board of Agriculture. He was surprised to hear the hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Long) speak of the representations of the Colonial Office as amounting to dictation. There was not one dictatorial sentence or word in the communications from the Colonial Office to the Board of Agriculture, and they simply summarised and embodied the views that had been strongly pressed upon them by the Canadian Government. The hon. Gentleman had quoted from a single article in a Montreal newspaper, but he might have quoted page after page from letters and statements of Government officers in Canada; inspectors, large cattle dealers, purchasers of cattle, and wholesale and retail butchers all bearing testimony to the healthiness of the herds in Canada. He was somewhat surprised when they heard so much and so often from the other side of the importance of maintaining considerations of Imperial interests that on this question they attached so little value apparently to the loyalty of the people in Canada and to the very important interests which they had in this question of the exportation of cattle. It was a most valuable trade to them. It was a trade which ought not hastily and without the greatest deliberation on the part of the Department on this side to be put a stop to. So far as all the interests in Scotland were concerned, there was a very strong feeling indeed against anything being done hastily to shut the door—and, apparently, to shut it for ever—against the continuance of this very large and important trade between one of the greatest and most important colonies and this country—a trade which had been conducted with great benefit to their shipowners, with great advantage to their large harbours and seaports, and with very great benefit indeed to the agri- culturists and the lauded proprietors in Scotland. Nor did he understand that the feeling in England was as unanimous as it was represented from the other side to be. There were gentlemen on his side of the House, representing some of the Eastern Counties of England, whose Chambers of Agriculture had passed resolutions in favour of the importation of Canadian cattle, and he therefore hoped the President of the Board of Agriculture would not, because of the pressure put upon him from the other side, shut this door for ever—as was apparently desired—against the importation of cattle which were believed by the Scottish farmers to be the healthiest of all the cattle imported into this country.

MR. JEFFREYS (Hants, Basingstoke)

could assure the hon. Gentleman that nobody wished to exclude these Canadian cattle except only so long as they had the slightest trace of disease upon them. All they desired was to keep their herds perfectly pure and free from disease, and that was all they asked the President of the Board of Agriculture to assist them in doing at the present time. To show the great danger in admitting Canadian cattle he would remind the House of what the President of the Board of Agriculture said only the previous day in reply to a question on this very subject. The Minister for Agriculture said that cattle recently landed at Liverpool from Canada were found to present appearances which justified the suggestion of pleuro-pneumonia. And yet, in face of that declaration, the hon. Member for Dundee wished to import those cattle wholesale into Scotland, and thereby run the risk of giving the disease to the whole cattle of Scotland. The hon. Member said it was a great shame to keep out cattle from Canada, because Canada was a loyal country. But the disease did not come from Canada altogether. It had been proved over and over again that the disease came from the United States to Canada, and from Canada to this country. He quite understood that a few Scotch graziers liked to buy cheap, underbred, and poorly-fed imported animals, their object being to feed them up, and then sell them in the London market as prime Scotch beef. But they all knew that there was a great difference between prime Scotch beef and those ill-bred and mongrel animals from Canada, whose importation into Scotland was, he knew, strongly opposed by numbers of Scotch farmers. If more store cattle were wanted in Scotland, let the animals be imported from Ireland and let the communications between the two countries be facilitated for that purpose. That would be to the advantage of Scotland and Ireland alike. The only recommendation of Canadian cattle was that they were to be obtained cheaply; but that was because a great many people would not buy them—first, because they were under bred animals; and, secondly, because they were afraid of bringing all sorts of diseases into their native herds.

* SIR J. LENG,

interposing, said, that Scotch farmers generally were of opinion that the Canadian cattle were a much healthier and a better class of cattle; that they laid on flesh much more quickly, and were in every way better, as stores, than the Irish cattle.

MR. JEFFREYS

said, he could not agree with the hon. Member. He had never bought Canadian cattle himself, but he had seen them frequently, and was astonished at their under-bred appearance. Agriculturists in England thanked the Minister for Agriculture for the position which he had taken up in connection with this matter, for if disease were now to attack their herds in the present depressed state of agriculture they would soon be completely ruined.

SIR MARK STEWART (Kirkcudbrightshire)

said, he had some practical experience in this matter. He had many hundreds of cattle on his farms in Scotland, and he had tried Canadian cattle; and he had come to the conclusion, from his experience of imported Canadian cattle, that English and Irish beasts were very much better for store purposes. Therefore, the advantages of the importation of Canadian cattle to Scotch farmers were not so great as his hon. Friend the Member for Dundee imagined. In fact, the farmers in large portions of Scotland were opposed to the introduction of Canadian cattle. He knew that the farmers about Dundee were in favour of the importation of Canadian cattle; but the farmers of the South of Scotland were not, for they were well supplied with store cattle from Ireland and Eng- land, and exported thousands of them, well fed, into England every year; and that being mainly dairy farmers they were against the importation of Canadian cattle, because of the serious danger to their herds in the case of an outbreak of pleuro-pneumonia. He congratulated the Minister for Agriculture on the firm attitude he had taken up in this matter. He trusted that the right hon. Gentleman would adhere firmly to the purpose which he had expressed, and that before any alterations were made in the Rules now in force the House would be given an opportunity of fully discussing the subject. He was satisfied that if the matter were fairly considered in the House, they would come to the conclusion—first, in the interest of the people who required good and cheap food; and second, in the interest of the farmers, who had to try to make their rents, that it would be better to slaughter the cattle before debarkation rather than to allow them to come into the country alive to spread disease amongst their herds.

COLONEL WARING (Down, N.)

said, he could not allow the Debate to close without saying a few words as an Irish cattle breeder. The hon. Member for Dundee seemed to think that they would be wanting in appreciation of Canadian loyalty if they did not throw open their ports to Canadian cattle. But those cattle, though shipped from Canadian ports, might not be Canadian cattle at all. And surely the hon. Member, who held strong views as to Ireland's political wrongs, might consider Ireland in the matter. Irish cattle breeders, while they had no wish to compete unfavourably with Canadian stores, felt that the importation of disease would be a fatal blow to their trade. Some time ago there was an outbreak of pleuro-pneumonia in Westmoreland, and the cry was at once raised that it came from Ireland; but investigation proved absolutely that the disease had not come from Ireland, but from an adjacent English county. In the same way, if there were an outbreak of pleuro-pneumonia, it would be said that it came from Ireland. As any stick was good enough to beat a dog, so any accusation was good enough to make against Ireland. He thanked the President of the Board of Agriculture for the position he- had taken up in the matter, but he should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he was satisfied whether quarantine for three months, which was the maximum period enforced on the American-Canadian frontier, was sufficient to protect them from the importation of a disease which often had an incubation of 15 months? If the right hon. Gentleman was satisfied with the period, it was more than he, as an Irish cattle breeder, could pretend to be. However, he hoped the right hon. Gentleman would stand firm in his present position; but if he intended at any time to remove the restrictions, he should do cattle breeders the justice of giving ample notice of his intention, so that they might avoid all contact between their herds and the imported animals.