§ DR. COOPER (Southwark, Bermondsey)To ask the hon. Member for South Somerset, as representing the President of the Board of Agriculture, whether the Board of Agriculture have any record of any outbreak at any time of foot-and-mouth disease in the sheep and cattle of Australia or New Zealand; and, if not, whether cattle or sheep from either of these Colonies would be allowed to land at the foreign cattle market at Deptford.
118 (Answered by Sir Edward Strachey.) The Answer to the first part of my hon. friend's Question is in the negative. There is nothing in the Foreign Animals Order to prevent animals from Australia or New Zealand being landed in this country provided they are brought there direct, but I understand that it is found necessary in practice for vessels from those countries to call at a port in one of those countries from which importation is prohibited, and in such circumstances the animals could not be landed in this country. An attempt was made several years ago to start a trade in live animals from Australasia, but the results were so disastrous to the cattle carried that the experiment was not repeated.