THE MASTER OF ELIBANK (Edinburgh, Midlothian)To ask the hon. Member for Huntingdonshire, as representing the President of the Board of Agriculture, whether the attention of the Department has been directed to the circumstances of the alleged outbreak of contagious pleuro-pneumonia among a cargo of Canadian cattle in 1892, on 933 account of which an embargo was imposed and is maintained on the importation of these cattle; and, if so, whether the Department can now remove it in the interests of British feeders and Canadian ranchers.
(Answered by Mr. Ailwyn Fellowes.) The circumstances to which the hon. Member refers are of course well known to the Board of Agriculture. They are fully detailed in Parliamentary Papers which were issued at the time. There is no special embargo applicable to cattle imported from Canada, but in pursuance of The Diseases of Animals Act, 1896, all animals imported to this country from abroad must be slaughtered at the port of landing. This requirement cannot be set aside by any order of the Board. I may add that the question of the admission of store cattle into the United Kingdom has been carefully examined, and that my noble friend sees no reason to depart from the policy adopted by his predecessor and endorsed in this House by a very large majority so recently as February last.