QUESTION—OBSERVATIONS. (Hansard, 12 March 1891)

*LORD STANLEY OF ALDERLEY

, in rising to ask whether, in view of checking hydrophobia and sheep worrying, the Government would omit "cattle" as a ground of exemption from the dog licence, and so restrict exemptions on account of sheep, said: My Lords, I am very glad that my noble Friend the Lord President has undertaken to answer this question, because knowing as I did the illness of the Lord Privy Seal, it is a great relief to me that he has not ventured to come down to the House notwithstanding the increased clemency of the weather. It is hardly necessary for me to dwell much upon the danger of spreading hydrophobia being increased by a large number of vagrant ill-fed dogs. My noble Friend the Lord President will remember that once before in this House he stated that Anglesey was one of the worst counties in the Kingdom for hydrophobia: and there were about that time many more dogs than holdings in Anglesey. With regard to the worrying of sheep, 742 complaints have appeared from time to time in the newspapers in various places, but last December some figures were published in the newspapers of North Wales of the destruction of sheep and lambs during two years, in seven parishes only, of Carnarvonshire. From these it appeared that 1,502 sheep and lambs had been killed or worried, causing a loss of £1,047, the value of the sheep, and a loss of £211 paid to watchers to protect them from their natural guardians, for such these dogs must be considered, being a total loss of £1,250 odd. Most of these dogs are exempted from duty on the ground of their attending "cattle" or sheep, "cattle" being a plural word, which is understood to mean two. There is a very prevalent belief in all parts of the country that there is great laxity on the part of the Excise officers in granting exemptions, but that is not the case. The fault lies, I think, in the wording of the Act, which left no discretion to the Excise, which allows any farmer to claim exemption for a certain number of dogs to attend or watch cattle or sheep. The consequence is that any tenant of four or five acres with two cows, and who is not properly speaking a farmer at all but a cottager, and who generally cannot afford to feed a dog properly, keeps an exempted dog. Cattle—cows especially—are much better without dogs coming near them. They have the greatest aversion to dogs, and the consequence of using these dogs is that the cows frequently drop their calves. Farmers in Scotland constantly get their milk curdled, from the cattle being pursued by collie dogs, in consequence of the agitation and alarm caused to the animals on that account. The only place where there is a good excuse for using dogs in connection with cattle is in the Highlands of Scotland, where the cattle roam over extensive unenclosed mountain tracts, but in these cases the herds were usually sufficiently numerous for their owners to be able to afford to pay for licences. The same thing may be said of sheep; it is not to be wondered at if so large a destruction of sheep has taken place in Carnarvonshire when it is remembered that a large number of these dogs are not sheep dogs at all, but lurchers, greyhounds, and mongrels of every description. The 743 primary object of the Dog Duty at the present day is not so much revenue, as to prevent the undue multiplication of dogs; but this habit of exempting some dogs, which was only introduced in or since 1879, provides for the survival of the unfittest. The Dog Tax, your Lordships will remember, originated in the latter part of last century during the great war. It was proposed by a man named Dent, who got consequently the nick-name of "Dog-Dent," and it was so unpopular at first that he used to receive hampers with legs and tails of pheasants sticking out of them, but filled only with dead dogs. These exemptions give a vast amount of trouble at Somerset House and they cause, therefore, additional expense besides the loss of duty. In the County of Anglesey last year, 1,235 dogs paid duty, and 2,621 were exempted; in the seven parishes of Carnarvonshire, where this great loss of sheep occurred, 605 dogs were licensed, and 1,332 exempted, so that there were more than two dogs exempted for every dog that was licensed. In the Birmingham district, however, and its immediate neighbourhood, which is as your Lordships know, principally black country, there were only 384 dogs exempted on cattle farms—there are no sheep farms there—and as many as 11,573 dogs that paid duty. So that Birmingham stands very well both with regard to the vigilance of the Excise officers and the honesty of the pitmen who are very fond of their dogs, which sometimes it is said even get the children's milk and are supposed to be fed with mutton chops. I hope the Government will do something to check the increase of the number of dogs, which in 1878, before the exemptions were allowed, was 1,490,493. Calculating from the duty now paid, and assuming that the exemptions are upon much the same scale in all parts of the country the number of dogs would now amount to about 2,250,000. With regard to London I have not asked for the figures; but it is said that the Muzzling Order has had the effect of very much diminishing the number of dogs in and about London. What I ask upon the Notice Paper the fore, is, whether Her Majesty's Government will omit "cattle" tending as a ground for exemption of dogs from being licensed, and 744 will restrict the exemptions on account of sheep. The simplest way, it seems to me, would be to abolish all exemptions, and if that cannot be done farmers might be defined and distinguished from cottagers, and dogs claiming exemption should be brought before the Excise officers to show that they were bonâ fide sheep dogs.