HL Deb 16 July 1928 vol 71 cc1010-33

LORD HINDLIP rose to ask His Majesty's Government whether in January, 1928, when the Ministry of Agriculture conducted an official investigation into foot-and-mouth disease in South America, the Ministry assumed that the risk of infection from imported meat lay in the bone and marrow, that there was no serious danger in the blood of the chilled carcase, and that consequently as a means of conveying the disease there was no distinction between chilled and frozen meat, and whether the Ministry still makes that assumption; and to move for Papers.

The noble Lord said: My Lords, I hope you will be not unduly bored by having this question of foot-and-mouth disease raised for the third time this summer. If so, I must apologise, but the matter is of considerable importance, not only to the agricultural community but also to the consumers of meat. On May 8, when the noble Lord, Lord Ernle, first raised this question, he made it quite plain that in his opinion one of the greatest sources, if not the greatest source, of infection among our herds was through the blood of chilled meat imported from the infected countries of South America. This view was not disputed and at that date I do not think it was challenged. The noble Earl who represents the Ministry of Agriculture, Lord Stradbroke, replying to Lord Ernle's suggestion that all meat from infected countries should be frozen and not chilled, did not to my mind refute the blood theory at all. He also promised that Lord Ernle's suggestion would be referred, I presume once more, to the Research Committee. Lord Ernle's contention and suggestion were supported about a fortnight later in a long and interesting letter to The Times from Sir William Haldane, and more recently by the Chief Veterinary Inspector for Australia, Mr. Haywood, in a Report to the Minister of Markets at Canberra. Mr. Haywood went so far as to say that the only means of eliminating foot-and-mouth disease from Great Britain was to treat all carcases coming from countries where the disease exists as potentially dangerous and store meat should be kept in freezers until the organisms are rendered innocuous. I suppose Mr. Haywood had access to the information at the disposal of the Ministry of Agriculture, and I do not imagine that he would have made a Report in such strong terms as those to his home Government unless he had been pretty certain of his facts.

Until June 27 it appeared that the Government did not challenge Lord Ernle's contention as regards danger from blood, but they did not, for some reason best known to themselves, wish to deal with the matter of chilled meat. On June 27 the noble Lord opposite, Lord Strachie, raised the question of the inspection of meat from infected countries, and the noble Earl, Lord Stradbroke, if he will allow me to say so, seemed somewhat skillfully to skate round the question of blood and—I hope he will forgive me if I am wrong—somewhat contradicted himself. He said:— With regard to chilled carcases, it was found that after 42 days bone marrow was infected but not after 76 days. Therefore we cannot yet say definitely how long the virus does continue alive in the blood or bones of the carcases.

I thought it was already proved, or contended, by the Research Committee that the virus in the blood could live only forty days. The noble Earl went on to say:— It seems that it [the virus] lives just as long in frozen meat as it does in chilled meat.

Lord Strachie then interjected:— Only in the bones.

The noble Earl replied:— That is so.

Personally I am rather in a quandary as to what view the noble Earl and the Ministry of Agriculture really do take as regards the blood.

On the same day, June 27, we had a speech from the noble Lord, Lord Bledisloe, whom I am glad to see in his place. He was fresh from the pampas and, if I may say so, brimming with enthusiasm for Argentina and all its meats. The noble Lord, who apparently had been in the Argentine on May 8, said:— It certainly is news to me if there is really considered to be any serious danger in the blood of the chilled carcase as a source of the conveyance of the disease. That, at any rate, is not the opinion, to my knowledge, of research workers on either side of the Atlantic.

Here again we have the theory of the virus in the blood contradicted by so high an authority as Lord Bledisloe. My Question simply concerns the blood, and I wish to keep the blood apart from the bones and the marrow, if it is possible to do so. As for my Motion for Papers, I dare say that there are no Papers, but I should like to know, if it is possible, what questions the Government put to the Research Committee after Lord Ernle's suggestion of May 8, whether any reply has yet been received, and, if so, what. I am under the impression, in spite of what the noble Earl said on June 27, that the Research Committee held the opinion that the virus of foot-and-mouth disease could live in the blood for only forty days.

LORD ERNLE

My Lords, I am told by the Parliamentary Secretary that it will be slightly more convenient to him that I should follow Lord Hindlip rather than set the debate going again by following his reply. I have so great an admiration for the unfailing good temper with which the Parliamentary Secretary has met his very persistent enquirers that I am only too glad to meet his convenience, but of course it makes my part a little difficult because I do not know what his answer to the Question will be. I imagine he will say, and say with great emphasis, that the case of fresh meat and the case of chilled meat are essentially different, because in the first case you have proof that the disease was conveyed through fresh meat whereas in the case of chilled meat there is only suspicion. With that view I may say that I entirely agree and I think that makes a most essential difference. He will also, I presume, admit what the Minister of Agriculture has admitted in another place—namely, that the Ministry do suspect both chilled and frozen meat. What I want to find out from him is whether they suspect the blood in the chilled meat or only the bone in the chilled meat, and I do not expect to get a very clear answer on that point.

The noble Lord alluded just now to the dexterity with which the noble Earl has evaded the really crucial point in this very difficult discussion. I do not think that any one is aware more than myself how great has been that skill and I hope that on this occasion he will make the admission. If he does not, all I can say is that I think he ought to make it. If he did so it would be entirely consistent with the whole history of foot-and-mouth disease in this country. I do not want to repeat what I have said on previous occasions, but you will find that in 1892, when we began our two-fold policy of slaughtering infected cattle in this country and preventing the importation of disease as far as possible from foreign countries, the new policy met with immediate success. From 1894 to 1910 we were free from foot-and-mouth disease except only in the years 1900 and 1901, when it was found that live cattle imported from Argentina were infected and live cattle were prohibited. There are two curious features about those sixteen years of immunity. Throughout the whole of that period the Continent was full of foot-and-mouth disease. Therefore it is quite plain that our precautions, whatever they were, were sufficient to keep the disease out of this country. There is no reason to think that there is any diminution in those precautions and so far as the old Continental trade is concerned I have no doubt that we are still able to keep the Continental foot-and-mouth disease at bay.

The other remarkale feature is that during the whole of that period frozen Meat was coming into this country in considerable quantities and yet was innocuous. That points to the fact, I believe, that bone is not a particularly dangerous source of infection. In 1908 South America became our chief supplier of chilled meat, and from 1910 to the present day we have never been free from foot-and-mouth disease, excepting in three war years, 1916, 1917 and 1918; and in those three years although frozen meat was still flowing into this country in the same proportion in which it comes in at the present day chilled meat was almost entirely suspended. It dwindled from having been 77 per cent. down to 6 per cent. and even 3 per cent. of the trade, and since the War we have seen an immense increase in foot-and-mouth disease. We have had it ever since, and we have had it with a violence which knows no parallel since 1892.

What are the new factors? We are right, I think, in assuming that the old Continental trade is still prevented from infecting this country and that frozen meat is not a cause of infection because it was innocuous for sixteen years and innocuous for three more years. What has happened is that we have been importing a great quantity of fresh meat from infected countries. We talk of fresh and chilled meat as if there was a difference between them. Both in their nature and infectivity they are as indistinguishable as they are indistinguishable on the butcher's stall, and while the Continental fresh meat has been checked, the fresh meat—what you may like to call chilled meat—from the Argentine continues to pour into this country, and to be carried about, distributed, sold, cut up into joints, and cooked, without the slightest precaution whatever against the possible source of infection.

I should like to recall to your minds the findings of the Research Committee. They are quite definite, and expressed with scientific precision. They find that the virus of the poison exists in refrigerated meat from thirty to forty days, and no longer. It is a definite limit to the virus of infection in the blood of refrigerated meat. On the other hand, when they deal with the bone they give no limitation whatever. They say that it has been known to exist as long as seventy-six days, but they express no opinion that it may not last for 376 days. Therefore, even on the ground of time limit it may be convenient, and certainly is the course which I am going to take, to deal to-day only with chilled meat. I have said that it is indistinguishable from fresh meat in its nature and properties, and it is so. Both fresh and chilled meat are soft meats, both bleed, and in both the blood remains infective although the poison dies out in the carcase. The noble Earl, in his reply on June 27, referring to the risk of infection from fresh meat, said this: "The poison lingers in the blood smeared on the carcase." That is precisely what happens with chilled meat. The poison lingers in the blood on the carcase. It lingers in the blood which drips from the joint when cut off the carcase, and the one difference between the infectivity of the blood of chilled meat and fresh meat is this: you apply to the poison in the chilled meat a preservative which prolongs its life in the blood for a period of forty days.

It has been proved that fresh meat conveys the virus of infection to cattle. What are the facts of the particular case? There was a sewage farm surrounding a bacon factory. The fields became infected, cattle got foot-and-mouth disease. How did the infection get there? The inspectors do not tell us what the process was. They suggest that the effluent from the bacon factory or the overalls—and that is very significant—of a boy who had wandered out, wearing clothes he had worn in the factory, was the means by which it was conveyed. But when they came to the factory they found their suspicions confirmed. On the fresh carcases of pigs imported from the Netherlands were recent lesions of the disease. The case was complete; the proof was absolute. But you can never expect that particular proof in the case of beef carcases, owing to the different way in which the carcases are dressed. You would never have the opportunity, in the case of an imported carcase of beef, of tracing the lesions in the throat, in the mouth, and in the feet, as you have in the case of pigs' carcases. Therefore that evidence can never be brought forward against the chilled meat brought from infected countries. Otherwise there is this significant identity in the circumstances. The outward and visible signs of foot-and-mouth disease, the lesions, that is to say, of the throat and mouth and feet ought not to escape the eye of inspectors. Therefore the Netherlands urge that by increasing the number of their inspectors and by stimulating their vigilance they could, and would, effectually prevent the importation of infected meat into this country. But our Ministry quite rightly insist that no multiplication of inspectors, and no increase of vigilance, could detect the disease in its incubative stage before any outward and visible symptoms had appeared, and that in the incubative stage the poison is alive in the blood.

That applies exactly to chilled meat from South America. No doubt inspection is ten times more difficult because the cattle are ten times more numerous; but even if the South Americans are anxious—and I believe that they are most honestly anxious—to take every possible precaution, they cannot secure us from the infection of those cattle which have only reached the incubative stage of the disease. The noble Lord who sits below me (Lord Bledisloe) the other day passed on to us a very generous invitation from the Argentine Rural Society to go out and visit that country, and to see for ourselves all the admirable precautions that they are taking. I am sure if we went there we should be received with the greatest hospitality, and that we should be given every facility for our inquiry, but we should be just as powerless as, and in fact ten times more powerless than, the whole army of inspectors already are to detect infection in the incubative stage of the disease. A far more practical test would be to isolate twenty pigs in this country and feed them on samples of successive shipments of chilled meat from the Argentine. I do not wish to belittle the intelligence and capacity of your Lordships, but I do think that those twenty pigs feeding at home would bring us a more reliable answer than forty Peers feasting in South America.

What I have said about chilled meat is only, I know, suspicion, but what I want to put to your Lordships is that the suspicion is very grave. I do not see what answer there is to the statement that chilled meat is in the thinnest possible way disguised from being fresh meat, and that it is rendered more dangerous, so far as the prolongation of the virus in the blood goes, by the very process of chilling it. I recognise to the full the difference between a proved case and a case of suspicion, and I do not want to press His Majesty's Government upon this point. I feel I probably know almost as well as the noble Earl the great embarrassment of the position in which they are placed, and I do not want to press them. They seem to me to be likely to be on the horns of a dilemma. And I may perhaps indicate only one of the horns—I will not touch upon the other. Supposing the Government determine that they have proof, or that the suspicions are so grave as to amount to proof, and they prohibit the import of chilled meat into this country. Discontent, we are told in a very famous essay, is a very grave danger to the State. Lord Bacon was thinking of hunger; but in our more delicate body politic an involuntary change of fashion in food might encourage that same discontent among the electorate, and prove fatal to the Government. And, moreover, if you stop the trade in chilled meat there is a possibility, I will not say probability, that the trade might altogether pass from us, and so you would not only deprive the people of a very valuable source of food supply, but you would deprive our manufacturers of the immense advantage of reciprocal trade in their commodities.

So I do not wish to press the Government on the point. I shall be quite satisfied if they tell us, as I hope they will, that they suspect the blood of chilled meat. Anyhow—and this is really the point of my speech—I would appeal to them to say that the suspicions are so grave, the history of the disease is so clear, that they ought to act upon their suspicions, and they ought to act in certain ways. I ventured to suggest a way in which they should act, and it was that the chilled meat should be placed in quarantine here for 21 days. The point of that is that the average voyage is 21 days. The quarantine of 21 days covers the complete period, the maximum limit, during which the poison is in the blood, and the moment that period is expired you can deal with the meat as safely as you can with the home produce in this country. It has already been done. It has been done by our Dominions. Soft meat of the nature of chilled meat, exactly the same thing, has been brought over to this country on a voyage of 55 to 60 days and marketed in good condition. Our friends in our overseas Dominions have done it without specially constructed ships for the carriage of chilled meat and without special machinery for keeping the air dry within the chamber. They have done it, so to speak, with home-made, make-shift appliances, but they have done it. There is, therefore, no doubt that the quarantine could be applied.

I am perfectly well aware, of course, that it would require a certain reorganisation of the trade. At present the chilled meat never goes into cold storage. In this case it would have to remain in cold storage for 21 days. But in view of the very grave suspicions and in view of the magnitude of the issues, I think the Government should make up their minds to act upon their suspicions and to enforce this policy. Supposing they do not, I venture to think they should act upon their suspicions in certain minor ways. Are the railway vans in which the chilled meat is carried disinfected at proper intervals? Are the private lorries in which the meat-packing companies convey the meat to its destination similarly disinfected? Is there any attempt at separation in the market in which this suspected meat is exposed for sale side by side with and possibly on the same stall as our home produced meat? Is there any effort to make known to the public the danger of the meat they are using? Why, for instance, should there not be by compulsion a card exposed to view wherever chilled meat is sold, setting out that though the meat is quite wholesome when it is cooked it must be used with great caution until it is cooked, that all the paper wrappings and all materials in which it is conveyed to private houses must be carefully and immediately destroyed, and that none of the raw food should be fed to pigs? I know that you have those Regulations already issued by the Ministry of Agriculture; but they never reach the millions of private houses into which this meat goes and from which the virus, the poison, may be distributed.

Those are practical suggestions, and they could be adopted, I take it, without in the least embarrassing the Government. I hope very much that the quarantine, the disinfection, the notice, and the other suggestions I have made will be most earnestly considered by the Government in fairness to our British farmers. We have had many discussions upon this question, and I am rather surprised that no one has endeavoured to show how great is the loss inflicted on British agriculture by this foot-and-mouth disease. Whenever a farmer reports an outbreak he is paid liberal compensation out of public money for the animals destroyed; but he is a very lucky man if he resumes his business in under six months, and the whole of the loss of its suspension falls upon him. One of the great branches of our agriculture is the export trade in pedigree stock. Owing to the prevalence of foot-and-mouth disease in this country Canada, the United States and South Africa are afraid of our cattle. Larger outlets are the infected markets of South America. So our best blood goes to help the stock of our commercial rivals. Even that outlet appears to be likely to be closed to us for I saw in the River Plate Review for June a statement in which they attribute the disease to our cattle which are imported into that country. There are brighter prospects opening up for grass farming. It is to be made more productive and capable of carrying a larger head of stock. How can you expect farmers to have the confidence and courage to launch out in herds when all the time there is hanging over them the prospect of an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease? I need not mention to your Lordships the dislocation of the milk industry, which so often happens, and the loss not only of the supply but the loss to the dairy farmer.

Another point I may mention is that the constant suspension of hunting in districts where it is carried on puts to great loss the farmers who expect to be able to sell their oats, their straw, and their hay and are not able to do it. If it is not altogether frivolous, I should like to add one other remark on that point. These constant suspensions of hunting are restricting hunting to the very rich men who can afford to have their sport interrupted and their horses thrown back upon them at great expense. I do not think the British public will contemplate without dismay the consequences of the repeated interruptions of hunting and the restriction if not the extinction of a national sport which has been for so long so general and so useful a school of physical fitness, steadiness of nerve, and quickness of decision. We all know that the Minister of Agriculture must administer his important office in the national and even in the Imperial interests of agriculture, but in your Lordships' House we are justified in making any suggestions which we think can help the British farmer to stand up against a calamity which is sometimes irretrievable.

THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY OF THE MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE AND FISHERIES (THE EARL OF STRADBROKE)

My Lords, the noble Lord who asked the Question and the noble Lord who has just spoken have made very interesting and exhaustive speeches on the subject of foot-and-mouth disease. They have stated very fairly the great difficulties in which the Government find themselves in coping and dealing with this scourge. I am glad those noble Lords realise, as I am sure all your Lordships realise, how great those difficulties are. I hope your Lordships realise also that the Ministry of Agriculture are fully alive to the scourge of foot-and-mouth disease and are not letting the matter slide by, but are continually keeping it before their notice and urging those in charge of the Research Department to go into further investigations and to find out whatever it is possible to find out regarding the survival of the virus. The last published Report on this matter was that which appeared in 1927, the Second Progress Report of the Research Committee and on that Report all investigations that have been made since have been based, both as to the survival of the virus and any method that can be taken to prevent infection being brought into this country.

The noble Lord asked if the Ministry of Agriculture were alive to the fact that infection can be brought in by blood. Certainly we are alive to that fact. The Ministry have always had that in their mind and, as has been mentioned this afternoon, the action taken with regard to the importation of carcases from Europe was based on the fact that it was found that infection was introduced through the blood of carcases imported in that way. But I must also remind your Lordships that the carcases from Europe were brought in very shortly after they were slaughtered. As I said the other night, the trade is so well-managed and so completely developed that carcases slaughtered overnight were offered for sale on the London market the next morning. We must also bear in mind, with all the experiments, whatever their value may be, that time has a great deal to say in the matter. Whereas these carcases from Europe were brought in a very short time after slaughter, carcases from South America have to be on the voyage a considerable number of days, and everybody, I think, will admit that the longer the period that elapses between the cargoes being brought to this country from overseas the less is the risk of the virus being alive when the carcase reaches here.

I am reminded that it has been said that blood can keep the virus alive for 30 or 40 days in chilled meat. That, I think, is said because of a statement made with regard to an experiment on blood taken from the heart of a carcase. The heart was separated from the carcase and the blood kept in a frozen state in order to test it and see if the virus would live. The virus was found to be alive after from 30 to 40 days. But that does not apply to blood in every part of the carcase, because, as your Lordships know, after death occurs, an acid permeates the body, and, although it may not reach the heart and all the deep arteries, yet it does permeate the muscles and ordinary blood veins, and where the acid permeates the virus is killed. Therefore if the virus does remain alive for a long time in some parts of the blood, it does not necessarily so remain for so long a period in the ordinary blood smears that must appear on the carcase treated in the ordinary commercial way.

With regard to the question whether there is more danger from carcases that are chilled or carcases that are frozen, I must confess that so far as the experiments have gone there seem to be greater risks from frozen carcases than from chilled carcases. If, for instance, the virus has to be sent, as it is sometimes sent, by one Research Station to another for experimental purposes, the virus can only be sent when it is frozen. We have found that the only effective way of transmitting it for any journey, even a comparatively short journey, is by freezing it. Therefore, I am afraid, there is not much hope to be found by ordering the carcases to be frozen instead of chilled. I think some confusion may have arisen in noble Lords' minds by the figures that have been given as to the length of time that the virus lives. It must be understood that all these experiments have been made with a certain object in view and that the periods over which the experiments were continued were 42 days with chilled meat and 76 days with frozen meat. Those periods were chosen because they were considered to be the periods which were the longest during which meat would be in transit from any part of the world to this market. When those experiments were complete it was decided not to go any further in that direction, but we shall now proceed further with those experiments.

As I explained on a previous occasion the station at Pirbright had to be closed down for repairs and new buildings had to be erected. Those buildings have now been put up and a refrigerator installed to deal with quarter carcases and with whole sheep, so that meat can be treated there in exactly the same condition as that in which it arrives on ships for use in this country. The Second Progress Report to which I have referred did not in any way pretend to be a final Report. It may be considered as but the commencement of a great many experiments and Reports that are to be made with reference to foot-and-mouth disease. We want to go on experimenting and experimenting so that we can find not only how to check the virus, but, if possible, some way by which meat can be imported into this country without any risk of its bringing in infection—to find in fact a means whereby the meat can be inoculated. I must admit that we are a long way from that. Still I want your Lordships to bear in mind that the Research Committee are doing everything in their power that can be thought of to enable meat to be imported—as we all admit it has to be imported for feeding the people of this country—without the risk of its bringing in disease.

Reference has been made by my noble friend Lord Hindlip to the fact that a Question was asked by Lord Ernle some time ago about the possibility of keeping the meat longer isolated after it arrives. Lord Ernle also referred to it himself. Directly after that Question was asked I had inquiries made and I wrote to the noble Lord himself explaining the result of those inquiries. We found that it was not likely from a commercial point of view to be a success. I was told that chilled meat imported as an experiment from Australia took fifty-five to sixty days in transit, that when it arrived some of the meat had a certain amount of mould on it, and that some considerable portion of the cargo had to be destroyed. Like all your Lordships, I should naturally be only too glad if we could find that was not so, as there would be more likelihood of our being able to encourage trade with our Dominions overseas, who are greatly handicapped by the length of the sea journey as compared with the journey from other countries. But we must face facts as they are. With regard to this cargo I have referred to, naturally every care was taken to see that there was no failure in any direction. The result, I am afraid, proved that at present nothing has been discovered that would make it likely to be a commercial success.

One or two other questions have been asked since the noble Lord who put the Question on the Paper sat down. One was whether it was illegal to bring the coverings of foreign meat into contact with animals. It is so, of course. Our Regulations enforce that, as also they enforce that no uncooked meat shall be fed to animals, but that it shall all be boiled. The noble Lord, Lord Ernle, said that people did not know these Regulations and that they ought to be more freely distributed. Naturally any suggestion made by him will receive the very earnest consideration of the Minister of Agriculture. We are only too glad when noble Lords, either in this House or by writing to the office, make suggestions. We make every effort to carry out their suggestions if they are feasible. But your Lordships will undertand—the noble Lord himself said so—that it would be exceedingly difficult and would be wrong for the Government to act on suspicion. We must act on fact.

If anything can be proved, if it is proved that disease has been brought into the country by certain methods, we should be justified in asking for Regulations to be put into force to stop that, but I think your Lordships will understand that we can hardly act on suspicion only. While we are most ready and most anxious to consider any suggestions that are made we cannot, I am afraid, act merely on suspicion, but we can, and do, keep in mind all the suggestions that have been made.

We are fully alive, I can assure your Lordships once again, to the great danger of and to the harm that is being done by, foot-and-mouth disease throughout the country. It is quite true that farmers are very generously treated in the matter of compensation for cattle slaughtered, but, as Lord Ernle pointed out, they are sufferers from the fact that their trade is practically at a standstill for several months afterwards. We all know the great inconvenience they suffer when foot-and-mouth disease breaks out. I can only assure your Lordships once more that we are keeping the subject very much before us and the Research Committee are going ahead. Their progress, it is true, may seem slow, but none of these experiments can be considered verified until they have been tried over and over again, or at least several times. Moreover, in the research world experiments are never accepted, I think, until they are verified by outside people taking the same steps that the Government Department have taken. I hope that I have convinced the noble Lord who raised this matter that we are alive to the question and that we will do all we can to check any possibility of infection being brought into the country, but, at the same time, that we cannot act on suspicion.

LORD PARMOOR

My Lords, I should like to say a few words in support of the noble Lord, Lord Ernle. It is impossible, of course, to exaggerate the difficulties and loss which foot-and-mouth disease has brought to the farmers of this country. As Lord Ernle has well pointed out, it is not a question simply of compensation for the animals killed, but we have also to consider the dislocation of the farming business within the districts in which foot-and-mouth disease has broken out. We are suffering in this country at the present time from a double disadvantage. We have the disadvantage of the dislocation of farming business, we have the loss to our farmers and we have the interference with the export trade of our well-bred animals abroad, while at the same time we are not released from the main difficulty which we desire to solve. We do not get rid finally of foot-and-mouth disease in these islands. When, as Lord President of the Council, I was at the head of the Research Department we had many serious consultations on the question of foot-and-mouth disease. Therefore, I am not for a moment suggesting that it is not a very difficult problem. I do not know at the present time exactly how far these research experiments have been carried, but I know that at that time every effort was made to ensure that they should be carried on as effectively as possible and by persons best qualified to undertake scientific research in matters of this kind.

When the noble Lord, Lord Ernle, used the word "suspicion" I think the noble Earl who represents the Ministry of Agriculture in this House hardly gave weight to what he really meant. He did not mean suspicion in what I may call the current meaning of the word, but a suspicion which brought a large amount of conviction to the ordinary man who is cognisant of the conditions under which that suspicion has arisen. I agree in one respect with what the noble Earl said, that you do want corroboration of fact as regards scientific experiments, but it is exactly that corroboration of fact which Lord Ernle gave in the very interesting speech he made. As I understood it, his speech was mainly directed to show that the suspicion was such in this case that so far as you can draw conclusions from the facts to which he referred, you would feel satisfied that there was a connection between the importation of chilled meat and the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in this country from time to time.

Lord Ernle, who is, of course, a great authority on this topic and who was for a long time himself at the Ministry of Agriculture, made two suggestions. I do not think the noble Earl dealt with those suggestions. I know, of course, that it is difficult to deal with suggestions in this House, but I do not think that he gave due weight to what the noble Lord, Lord Ernle, said. Lord Ernle said, in the first place, that he thought the time had come when a quarantine system might be initiated in order to meet the suspicion that has arisen, and to see if he was right in his opinion that it was owing to the importation of chilled meat that we had these recurring outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease in this country. Surely the statistics based on years when chilled meat was imported and on years when it was not imported must bring more than a suspicion, almost a reality, to the ordinary man, when he hears the suggestion that foot-and-mouth disease in this country may be traced to chilled meat. I was rather disappointed, I must say, looking at this matter from the farmer's point of view, to hear no reference made to that by the noble Earl who represents the Ministry of Agriculture in this House. I am quite aware that Lord Ernle himself emphasised the difficulty, and I do not wish to deny the difficulty for one moment, but there was a concrete proposal of a very valuable kind and one would really like to know what is the opinion of the Minister of Agriculture as to putting that concrete proposal into operation.

There was another point made by Lord Ernle and I am not quite sure that the noble Earl appreciated the importance of it. That was that the carriage of chilled meat should be protected by further inspection and by disinfection of the trucks and lorries in which it is carried from the central market to the butchers' shops, where it is sold, or to any other place. I believe that the Ministry of Agriculture have done a great deal in that direction, and I do not want to criticise them, but surely more might be done. If, as seems to be thought, chilled meat importation cannot be stopped—and I assent to that for the moment—surely a suggestion of that kind ought not only to be carefully considered but to be put into effective operation at the earliest possible moment. I do not for a moment suggest that the noble Earl who represents the Ministry of Agriculture in this House is not alive to the importance of a question of this kind, but I certainly did not hear him give any encouragement to the suggestion which the noble Lord, Lord Ernle, made.

I am certain that the noble Earl appreciated, as everyone must at the Ministry of Agriculture, that we are dealing with a matter which goes to the very basis of the prosperity of farming in this country. As Lord Ernle pointed out, and as we all know, we are looking for the regeneration of farming largely in connection with the improvement of our pastures and our herds. I think that everybody who is cognisant of the conditions must be aware of this. In those circumstances no possibility of improvement which might prevent the introduction of foot-and-mouth disease into this country ought to be left untried, and so I hope, though perhaps the noble Earl cannot give an answer at the moment, that he and the Ministry will keep in mind the two very concrete proposals that were made, and that if there is a chance—I think that there is more than a chance—that these suggestions will deal with this evil they ought to be put into effective operation at the earliest possible moment. I think we all owe a debt to Lord Ernle for the way in which he has brought this matter before your Lordships, not disguising the difficulty, for none of us can do so, but suggesting what might be a very effective means of dealing with what is at the moment a most unfortunate condition of affairs.

LORD STRACHIE

My Lords, If I may intervene for a moment, I cannot think that the noble Earl's reply will satisfy the farming community in this country. I think that they will be very disappointed with his speech, which practically amounted to saying that he does not know if the Ministry can do anything in the future. I was rather surprised that the noble Earl did not reply more fully to Lord Ernle's remarks as to the difference between fresh meat and chilled meat. The noble Lord said quite plainly that it could not distinguish one from the other. I think one might go a step further and say that if, as the Parliamentary Secretary admits, the infection has been brought into this country with fresh meat, then it could also be brought in with chilled meat, if the two are indistinguishable. This cannot be denied if you once admit that fresh meat and chilled meat are exactly the same as far as the possibility of infection is concerned.

I was also disappointed that the noble Earl did not indicate that he would accept Lord Ernle's suggestion that experiments should be made in the direction of feeding chilled meat to pigs. If this meat were fed to pigs which could be isolated, it would provide an interesting experiment and it might turn out to be very useful. I am surprised that such a suggestion, coming from one of Lord Ernle's experience and reputation, should be turned down by the noble Earl who, so far as I could hear, did not appear to taken any notice of it. As regard chilled meat being quarantined, here again Lord Ernle seemed to me to make a very valuable suggestion and that suggestion was turned down by the noble Earl. On what ground? Because experiments have been made in Australia on chilled meat that has taken some fifty or sixty days to bring over. But, as Lord Ernle pointed out the meat was brought from the Colonies under conditions that are not applicable to the importation from Argentina. If all meat had to be kept in quarantine for sixty days, the question would arise of the Dominions adopting the same means of bringing chilled meat over as in the case of the Argentine.

What struck me most, both to-day and in the debate of June 27, was that the noble Earl's real ground of dislike for the suggestion that chilled meat should be quarantined seemed to be that it would interfere with the trader who puts goods into cold storage. Apparently, so far as the noble Earl is concerned, it does not matter what the poor farmer has to suffer. His sympathy is with the trader. I say that it is relatively unimportant if the trader is put to greater expense and has more trouble as a result of quarantine, if that method is really going to be effective. I was rather surprised to hear the noble Earl say that there was more risk from frozen meat than from chilled meat. The noble Earl will correct me if I am wrong, but I seem to recollect that Colonel Guinness, in another place, said that it was quite certain that infection did not come from frozen meat, though there was a suspicion that it came from chilled meat. There is a complete contradiction between the statements of the Parliamentary Secretary and the Minister of Agriculture. I hope that, though the noble Earl has been able to give us no satisfaction to-day, he will go further into the question and on some future occasion will be able to give us some assurance that something will be done, for foot-and-mouth disease causes enormous difficulties and these outbreaks continue to cause enormous loss to agriculturists in this country.

LORD BLEDISLOE

My Lords, as I listened to the extraordinarily able speech of my noble friend Lord Ernle, full of knowledge and perspicacity and, if I may say so, of most incisive interrogations of the noble Earl in front of me, I felt almost relieved that I was no longer occupying the position that he occupies with such ability. I am tempted to say, however, that all those speculations and hypotheses which have been the basis of several debates in this House and of a certain number, I believe, in another place, do not carry us very far. They are certainly creating, particularly the interrogatories addressed to the Minister of Agriculture in the House of Commons, considerable unrest on the other side of the Atlantic, and notably, of course, in Argentina. As many members of this House and others who are interested in the country's trade are aware, they have created a feeling of insecurity in respect of trade passing between this country and South America.

The case that Lord Ernle has submitted to your Lordships is, I am bound to say, the most convincing case that I have ever heard propounded in your Lordships' House. But when he reminds us that, during the periods when there was an interruption in the trade in chilled carcases with this country, there appeared to be some abatement in the outbreaks of the disease on this side of the Atlantic, or at any rate in this country, I think it is only fair to remind your Lordships of the fact that on every occasion when there has been any serious outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in any part of the United Kingdom there has apparently been a serious prevalence of the disease on the Continent of Europe, notably in Germany, Belgium, Holland and, two years ago, very particularly in Denmark, and occasionally also in France. I notice that the word "suspicion" has been bandied about this House in this connection. I am not sure whether the noble Earl is prepared to assent to the proposition that the Ministry of Agriculture hold the view, or entertain suspicions, that Argentine chilled meat is the source of outbreaks of the disease that are now occasional and sometimes prevalent in this country, because I should have thought that this was putting it rather high. So far from suggesting, as the noble and learned Lord opposite has suggested, that this suspicion amounts to something like conviction, I am bound to say that when I was at the Ministry of Agriculture the idea of our veterinary experts was that there was undoubtedly a possibility of the transference of the virus of the disease from South America to this country, but it certainly was not sufficient to ground any serious suspicion upon.

Surely, when one bears in mind that about 48 per cent. of the whole of the beef supply to the urban population of this country now comes from the Argentine Republic, if this were a real, serious source of danger to the flocks and herds of this country the disease would be far more prevalent than it is, and we should have it constantly among us to a more extensive and dangerous degree. That is not the case. On the other hand it is the case that when you have the disease rife on the Continent of Europe, within a comparatively short distance from our shores, almost invariably we have a serious and prolonged outbreak or a series of outbreaks in this country. I do venture to hope that noble Lords in this House, who after all have some claim to speak on the subject of our oldest and greatest industry, and many of whom are our largest stockholders, will at least give credit to the Argentine for trying to do their best, under difficult conditions, to carry out what His Majesty's Government are asking them to do. As regards blood as a possible source of transference of this disease, I have myself watched these carefully-cleaned carcases being quartered and wrapped up and stitched up, first in stockinette and afterwards in Hessian matting. I find it extremely difficult to believe that there can be any blood on the surface of the carcases as despatched, or that, if there is any, it can be a source of transference of the disease to other articles coming in contact with these packed quarters of chilled meat.

What really rose to ask was whether the time has not come to see if we can get a little beyond this stage of hypothesis and suspicion, and whether we cannot, by some such experiment as the noble Lord behind me suggested, endeavour to get at the facts. Supposing you were to feed quite a considerable quantity of bone and flesh and blood, forming parts of chilled carcases coming from the Argentine, to a selected and healthy herd of pigs: surely, by such an experiment you would ascertain whether foot-and-mouth disease, which at times is seriously prevalent in the Argentine—I have known of a herd being infected three times within twelve months—is brought here in chilled meat. Surely such an experiment as is suggested would carry us a good deal further than all these debates, grounded upon suspicion and speculation, as to whether this is, or is not, a source of outbreaks of the disease in this country. I would like to support this suggestion of my noble friend behind me, and I would like to ask the noble Earl whether he will consult with his experts as to whether such an experiment is advisable, in the first place in justice to the Argentine, and secondly in order to allay, to a large extent, the suspicion which is prevalent in the minds of the agricultural community at a time when, as we all know, they are suffering from serious depression, and when they are very apt to look to any trouble such as is suggested as aggravating their difficulties, as one with which the Government ought to cope.

In the other suggestion which was made by the noble Lord behind me I see greater difficulty. It was a suggestion that there should be instituted a quarantine of twenty-one days for all chilled carcases coming to this country. I do not say that it is alone a sufficient reason for rejecting the suggestion, but it would involve an enormous amount of locked-up capital, and also danger of some deterioration of the carcases. If, as Lord Ernie informs me, it is possible by conveying these carcases from properly chilled chambers on board ship into properly chilled chambers on this side, to institute quarantine without serious deterioration, then that might be worth while attempting, but the other experiment does strike me as a matter easy to carry out and as likely to be far more convincing in its results. I therefore want to press upon the Government, while resisting the claim embodied in the Question before the House, the desirability not only of trying to restore some measure of confidence on this subject among politicians and farmers, but of putting an end to the suspicion which exists by some such suggestion as has been made.

LORD BANBURY OF SOUTHAM

My Lords, I am not sure that I understood the noble Earl rightly, and I should therefore like to ask him this question. As I understood him, he admitted that in the case of blood coming from the heart of the animal there was not only a suspicion but it was the fact that the virus existed, but there was only a suspicion that it existed in blood coming from other parts of the animal. If I am correct in what I thought I heard the noble Earl say, it really is an admission that the virus exists in the blood, provided the blood comes from a certain portion of the animal. In those circumstances it seems to me absolutely necessary that something should be done. My noble friend behind me said that if you kept the carcase for twenty-one days in cold storage after the twenty-one days occupied on the voyage, you would add to the expense, but you might do away with the enormous expense which results from slaughtering animals, and therefore you have to weigh one expense against the other. I do not know which would be the greater, but I think it would be advisable, even if it does cost a little, to try and see whether something of this sort could be attempted.

THE EARL OF STRADBROKE

I am afraid that I did not make myself very clear, and therefore I apologise to my noble friend, but I think I said that I should be only too glad to consider the suggestions made by Lord Ernle, and that they should receive the attention of the Ministry.

LORD HINDLIP

My Lords, although as regards the Question on the Paper I do not know that I am very much wiser, yet I must say that I think I can be quite satisfied with the result of putting down the Question, because we have had a very interesting debate and certainly one or two valuable suggestions. We have also secured the valuable support of Lord Bledisloe for an experiment carried out on the lines suggested by Lord Ernle. If that experiment is carried out as regards chilled meat, I do not think that this debate will have been wasted. As to the matter of Papers, I do not know whether the noble Earl told us what he asked the Research Committee, or if the Research Committee gave any answer, but I am at all events quite satisfied with the debate.

THE EARL OF STRADBROKE

The Committee have not published any further Report, but they will in due course.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.