§ SIR JOHN LENG (Dundee)I beg to ask the President of the Board of Agriculture, whether an application was 1333 recently made to the Board on behalf of the New Zealand Government to allow New Zealand sheep and cattle to be landed alive in this country; and whether, although the officers of the Board admit that New Zealand is perfectly free from contagious diseases of sheep and cattle, the application was refused; whether the chief veterinary officer to the New Zealand Government informed the Department that he has travelled over the whole of the Colony, and failed to find a single case of pleuro-pneumonia or other contagious disease such as is scheduled in Great Britain; and, whether, although entirely free from contagious disease, this Colony is still to be treated as if suffering from contagion.
THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE (Mr. WALTER LONC, Liverpool, West Derby)The application recently made to me was that New Zealand sheep and cattle should be allowed to be landed in this country without being slaughtered at the port of landing, regardless of the fact that the vessel bringing them had entered or been in ports or places in other countries contrary to the provisions of the Foreign Animals Order of 1895. I have no reason to doubt the statements made to me by the New Zealand Government as to the absence of disease in the colony at the present time, but in dealing with the application made to me, it was obviously-necessary to consider the sanitary condition of animals in the other countries with which the vessels trade in the course of their voyage.
§ SIR JOHN LENGasked if any differ-once would be made in the case of vessels coming direct?