§ "That a sum, not exceeding £92,356, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1903, for the salaries and expenses of the Office of His Majesty's Secretary of State for the Home Department and subordinate Offices."
§ MR. T. P. O'CONNORsaid that when the Vote was considered in Committee his hon. friend the Member for South Donegal expressed extremely strong views in regard to the manner in which inspection in connection with vivisection was carried on, and his hon. friend went on to denounce, in somewhat forcible language, the practice of vivisection in every shape and form. It was due to the strong conviction which he himself held on the subject that he should state that he thought the Home Office would be most unwise in forbidding vivisection altogether. He would not yield to any man in his love for animals, and he did not know if, at certain periods of one's life, one did not think that it would not have been better to bestow love on what were called the lower animals than on the higher animals. If vivisection meant any pain to the lowest animal, he would be against it, and he was against it in any shape or form that would inflict pain on animals. But, at the same time, he thought that vivisection carried on under the safeguards provided by the Home Office was 1645 absolutely necessary. If a medical man were now able to save 75 per cent. of diphtheria cases where formerly 60 per cent. were fatal, if the horrible disease of hydrophobia was to a large extent diminished, if vaccination had practically destroyed the disease of small-pox in places where the people where not stupid enough to avoid it, if surgical operations, especially on the brain, were possible which were impossible twenty or thirty years ago, if all these incalculable and infinite blessings to humanity were 1646 possible today, it was largely due to the research made by vivisection. He held those views so strongly that he felt compelled to give expression to them.