Mr. CHANCELLORasked what, during 1911, was the amount of salaries and expenses of the two inspectors who personally saw 291 vivisectional experiments out of the 95,203 made in that year?
§ Mr. McKENNAThe salaries of the inspectors amounted to £893, and travelling and incidental expenses to £140. The seeing experiments performed is, of course, only a small portion of the work of these gentlemen.
Mr. CHANCELLORalso asked whether the irregularities by six licensees referred to in the Return of Experiments on Living Animals for 1912 were reported by them or were discovered by the inspectors through witnessing the 291 experiments which they saw personally; and whether, in the case of the 94,912 experiments which the inspectors did not see, the Home Office depended entirely on the reports of the licensees themselves, or possesses or used any machinery to discover or check irregularities in case licensees declined to incriminate themselves by reporting them?
2271W
§ Mr. McKENNAThere were no irregularities in the 291 experiments in which the inspectors witnessed the operations. In one case the irregularity was detected by the inspector seeing the animals (cats) after they had been operated on. In the other cases the irregularities were detected from the reports made, or papers written, by the licensees. The check upon irregularities, especially any of a serious nature, is afforded by the large number of animals (many thousands) under experiment which are seen by the inspector on his visits after the operation or inoculation.