THE EARL OF CARNARVON, in rising to move for copies of Correspondence between the Privy Council Office and the local authorities of Hull and Liverpool, relative to a recent outbreak of Cholera, and to ask Her Majesty's Government, What precautions they had adopted in relation thereto? said, that the Question he had to put was of a very serious and pressing character. Several cases of cholera had recently occurred in Liverpool, and although there was nothing to cause panic, there was everything to justify the greatest caution on the part of the Government and the local authorities. There was no doubt as to the origin of this outbreak. A large number of German emigrants had landed at Hull, and had travelled by railway to Liverpool, and it was at Liverpool, without an exception, that all these cases had arisen. The most formidable outbreak had occurred on board 951 a vessel that had sailed from Liverpool for New York. It was at Liverpool, again, and among this body of emigrants, that diarrhoea and typhus had been prevalent, and the House was aware that diarrhoea was the first stage, and, at all events, the harbinger of cholera. The habits of these emigrants were the reverse of cleanly, and they were congregated together in the most unhealthy quarters of the town. A case had been stated where 150 of these emigrants lived in one house in Liverpool, and forty in a single room. If these persons really came from cholera-infected countries, were these not all conditions that would justify them in expecting cholera to break out? Assuming that the theory of quarantine was a sound one, it was most desirable to take precautions against this through-traffic of emigrants from these cholera-infected districts. He did not pretend to point out how this was to be done, but probably the best way might be for Government to enforce the laws of quarantine that were already laid down, and to institute any fresh precautions that might seem necessary. A frightful mortality had already taken place, and there was no advantage to this country in running the risk of receiving emigrants who carried with them the seeds of cholera poison into a thickly populated town. A few days since there had appeared an Order in Council on the subject of cholera, which laid down four rules—first, that no one should land from a ship infected with cholera without the permission of the local authorities; secondly, that a medical inspection should take place; thirdly, that the sick should be removed to some hulk; and fourthly, that the bodies of the dead should be thrown into the deep sea. Looking at the question from a common sense point of view, these measures were, no doubt, good as far as they went; but they ought to have gone further. He did not know why such powers should have been placed in the hands of the local authorities. The prohibition to healthy passengers to land seemed to him to be of very doubtful advantage. They might say that the medical authorities would not give permission to the passengers to land unless they were healthy; but unless they exercised a constant surveillance over each person, to satisfy themselves that the disease was not incubating among the passengers, such inspection would be useless. To keep people separate from the rest of the community by detaining them on board 952 ship would be a thing unheard of except during a state of strict quarantine. The regulations issued appeared to him to apply only to persons on board ship, and, if he did them no injustice, they made no provision for the separation of the sick and the healthy, which would be impossible without the provision of a proper floating hospital. He would be glad to hear what recommendations had been made to local authorities with regard to those persons who had landed, and how far those recommendations had been carried out. Accounts had been received from Liverpool which stated that some of the emigrants who had arrived there had been placed in the workhouse, that others had been placed in lodging-houses, and that a third party had been provided with a separate room by the workhouse authorities, and, having spent the night there, they were discharged next morning. If the latter were infected, it was obvious they would carry infection wherever they went. The requirements of a hospital were very simple indeed—a construction of the most temporary character would answer the purpose, so long as there was cleanliness and good ventilation. He believed that these requirements were effectually combined in hulks, and he would invite the noble Duke at the head of the Admiralty to state how far it might be possible to place a sufficient number of hulks at the disposal of the proper authorities. No doubt hulks would be only a temporary expedient, but the ventilation in them was very fair, and by means of their isolation might be rendered complete, and communication with the shore might be entirely cut off. The noble Earl concluded by moving an address for,
Copies of Correspondence between the Privy Council Office and the Local Authorities of Hull and Liverpool, relative to certain Cases of Cholera."—(The Earl of Carnarvon.)
§ EARL GRANVILLEsaid, that the question had the serious consideration of the Government both this year and last year. If the Government did not adopt what the noble Earl called half measures they must do one of two things—either make no regulations at all and allow persons sick of cholera to land wherever they liked, or establish a rigid quarantine. It was doubtful whether even quarantine, as carried out by foreign Governments, was effectual in preventing the spread of cholera, for, notwithstanding quarantine, we knew how much Marseilles and other 953 ports Buffered from cholera. At this moment we were unprovided with any of the machinery necessary for maintaining quarantine with any chance of making it an absolute bar to the spread of cholera. In the opinion of the best medical authorities a quarantine of ten days was the shortest period which would prove any security against the spread of the disease; and to carry out such a quarantine between Dover and Calais would convert a passage of two hours into one of ten days; that, of course, would be impossible in the present state of our relations with Europe; and it was not the intention of the Government to attempt it. On hearing of the danger of the outbreak of cholera at the outports, the Government communicated with the local authorities in letters, which were in perfect accordance with those issued by the Derby Government in 1852. A letter of recommendation since issued insisted on the necessity of adopting all sanitary precautions, which really might be summed up in the terms—a plentiful supply of fresh air and fresh water to the town populations. That was the best precaution against disease. He quite agreed with the noble Earl that some of the outports really stood in urgent need of sanitary measures. They had offered to Liverpool and to the other ports to issue an Order in Council putting them under the Diseases Prevention Act; and a Bill to amend and extend that Act had been prepared and was before the House of Commons. In addition to all this, the Poor Law Board had communicated with the local authorities of all the outports. The Government had also issued the order to which the noble Earl had referred, and it did all that was practicable, unless they went to the extent of establishing quarantine. To keep people on board ship, as was suggested by the noble Earl, would endanger the lives of both passengers and crew, for emigrant ships were ordinarily much crowded, and to detain cholera patients on board them would be inhuman and fatal. He believed that the great influx of foreign emigrants into this country was practically at an end. The Government telegraphed to the Consuls at those ports from which the emigrants chiefly came that the shipowners here would take no more emigrants on board their ships. This intelligence did not produce at once the desired effect, because some emigrants had paid the whole of their passage money to the United States, 954 and they chose rather to run the risk of coming to Liverpool than to stay in German ports. When this became known the Home Office communicated with the mayors of the outports respecting the arrival of the emigrants still expected. The Government also entered into communication with a view to arrangements for the return of passage money to emigrants on the Continent, so as to prevent their sailing for this country; and one result of the correspondence had been that the emigration agents at the outports of Germany whence the emigrants came had issued orders to their inland agents to make no further contracts whatever for the conveyance of emigrants to America, vid Hull and Liverpool. In this way the danger from emigration had been stopped for the present. The Government were most anxious to co-operate with the local authorities, and to help them in every possible way in the measures they might adopt. Medical officers had been sent down to confer with the local medical officers, and the applications for the supply of hulks or vessels, which had been numerous, had been forwarded to the Admiralty. It would be convenient that the noble Duke at the head of the Admiralty should state what had been done by that Department.
§ THE DUKE OF SOMERSETsaid, there were very few hulks at the disposal of the Admiralty that were capable of being fitted up readily as hospitals; but one at Cork had been offered to the Emigration Commissioners for the use of the emigrants arriving there, and one at Plymouth, and another in the Thames had also been placed at the disposal of the Commissioners. To prepare and fit up other hulks for a similar purpose would involve an expenditure of £3,000 or £4,000 each, and a delay of some weeks; and, therefore, the Admiralty were practically restricted in the number of hulks they could supply to meet the emergency. Where hulks had been already used as hospitals, the Admiralty would readily lend them for the purpose.
THE EARL OF CARNARVONsaid, the noble Earl the President of the Council had somewhat misunderstood him. What he urged was that there should be separate accommodation, and that patients should be drafted to hospitals on land or on sea, so as to be entirely isolated from the rest of the community. He had never dreamt of putting the whole country, from Dover to the Land's End, under quarantine—all 955 he said was that quarantine should he more strictly performed at Hull and other ports at which emigrants arrived. He should like to he informed as to the exact amount of accommodation already provided by the local authorities at Liverpool—whether they had established an hospital on sea or land, no matter of how temporary a character.
§ EARL GRANVILLEsaid, the accommodation provided consisted of the two vessels to which he had alluded. Some of the sick persons, however, had been removed to the emigration depot. He hoped that Liverpool would make greater exertions in order to supply more ample accommodation than it had hitherto done.
§ Motion agreed to.