SECOND READING. (Hansard, 19 February 1884)

THE DUKE OF RICHMOND AND GORDON

said, he proposed in Committee to offer some Amendments to this Bill; but he would point out to the noble Lord the Lord President of the Council the very great desirability of explaining more distinctly the provisions of Clauses 2 and 3. There was very great misapprehension as to what they were intended to meet, and they alarmed a great number of people. He thought probably that if the noble Lord would explain them thoroughly he would facilitate the passage of the Bill. He should himself propose an Amendment to Clause 1, which he hoped would be satisfactory to both sides of the House. In that clause the Government had already gone some way in the direction in which the hon. Member for Mid Lincolnshire (MR. Chaplin) desired them to go, and he trusted that they would be willing to go a little further on the same path. He objected to the clause limiting the operation of the Bill to a period of two years. If the measure was necessary now for the prevention of the introduction of foot-and-mouth disease, why should it be less necessary to take similar precautions two years hence? Who would embark any large amount of capital in agriculture, in the hope that foot-and-mouth disease would be reduced to a minimum, when it should come to 1305 be known that in two years' time the precautions which the farmers now desired would no longer be taken? In Committee he should ask their Lordships to reject the clause.