MR. CHAPLIN'S VICTORY AND MR. MUNDELLA'S SPEECH.
MR. CHAPLIN'S victory on Tuesday night illustrates afresh the old remark that a producing interest is always indefinitely stronger in proportion to its numbers than consumers, who have no means of common action, can ever be. Mr. Chaplin's victory,—which was due to the defection of a good many Liberals and the abstention of many more,—was the victory of the graziers over the people of Great Britain. As we understand the issue in debate, it is very simple. The Act of 1878 was intended to give the Privy Council a large discretion as between three courses of action towards foreign cattle,free admission, slaughter at the port of debarcation, and complete prohibition. They were to be admitted free whenever there was reasonable evidence that the countries from which the cattle are imported are under good sanitary provisions as regards the health and transit of the cattle, and free from disease ; they were to be slaughtered at the port of debarcation, whenever the coun- tries whence the cattle come are not free from disease, but where the disease is not of the most dangerous kind, and where, in the opinion of the Privy Council, the mis- chief arising to the cattle-breeder from the possible importa- tion of disease would not be nearly so serious as the mischief arising to the English people from a serious limitation of their food ; and they were to be prohibited altogether, whenever the Privy Council and their advisers believed that the danger of infection,—such as must be involved in any coming of unhealthy cattle, even though slaughtered at the port of arrival,—would involve greater loss and suffering to the English people at large, than the complete exclusion of cattle coming to us from that region. The Privy Council have enforced the Act in this general sense,—that when they knew the origin of the cattle to be a country infected with rinderpest and pleuro- pneumonia, they prohibited the importation altogether ; that when they knew it to be infected only with foot-and-mouth disease, which is a much less serious affair, but still knew it to be infected with foot-and-mouth disease in a virulent form, they prohibited importation for a time till they secured greater care and stricter precautions on the part of the exporting country and in consequence a great limitation of the danger ; but that generally they insisted only on the slaughter at the port of arrival of animals arriving from countries where there is a certain amount of foot-and-mouth disease ; and that they admitted cattle freely only where they were satisfied that the country from which the importa- tions came was not infected with any disease, and that its sanitary regulations were good. Mr.- Chaplin's victory, if it is to be acted on, really means this,—that there is to be no intermediate course at all, that the exercise of discretion by the Privy Council is to cease, and that whenever they are not satisfied that the country from which the cattle are received is absolutely free from dis: ease, they must prohibit importation from that country altogether, and not allow cattle to arrive, even though they be slaughtered at the port of arrival. In other words, the consumer is to be sacrificed to the grazier or breeder, and four-fifths of the foreign meat supply is to be cut off; though, as Mr. Mundella tells us, only six diseased animals have been imported in the last six months out of thirty thousand actually imported. And thus the value of the cattle bred at home is to be artificially raised. And this is to be the course taken in spite of the fact that the cattle bred in England show a very much larger proportion of disease than the cattle recently imported from foreign countries under the careful administration of the Act of 1878. Mr. Mundella believes, and Mr. Chaplin and his friends do not deny, that the effect of the new restriction, if it is to be actually enforced, will raise the price of meat at least 2d. or 3d. a pound in this country,—a rise of price which practically means a discon- tinuance of a very considerable part of their animal food by very large classes in this country. In short, Mr. Chaplin's resolution means that, when the loss of the British grazier and breeder has to be weighed against the loss of a meat diet
by the poorer population of England at large, the infliction of loss on the latter is always to be preferred.
And what is the excuse for this sudden reversal of the policy of 1878 ? Because, says Mr. Chaplin, the Act of 1878 has failed. Let any one who is taken in by that monstrous statement, study Mr. Mundella's very able speech. Of course, if it is meant that the Act of 1878 as administered has not absolutely excluded all importations of disease, the Act has failed—only nobody ever expected that it would succeed. So far as we can see, there is no reasonable doubt that foot-and- mouth disease was imported into this country in 1880, through the admission of an infected cargo to Deptford. But is that failure ? The failure of a measure means, we suppose, not that it does not effect everything that the most sanguine hoped, but that it does not improve matters,—or even, if you please, that it does not effect as much as the reasonable and moderate supporters of the measure anticipated. In this case, judged by either meaning of the phrase, the Act has not only not failed, but has succeeded splendidly. It has in five years' administration extinguished rinderpest and sheep-rot. It has diminished pleuro-pneumonia by 75 per cent. And it has kept foot-and-mouth disease within such moderate limits that there have been fewer cases of it within the last three years than there were in a single month of 1871.
If that is failure, what would success mean We suppose it would mean, in Mr. Chaplin's mouth, the absolute extinction of imported disease of all kinds,—indigenous disease cannot, of course, be extinguished,—at any cost, however enormous, to the population of this country.
We submit that Mr. Mundella amply proved his case that it is infinitely better for this country at large to import 30,000 cattle, of which six should be diseased, if the disease, even though infectious, be disease only of a comparatively mild kind, and if precautions be taken by slaughtering at the port of arrival to prevent any needless risk of contagion, than to exclude the 29,994 healthy animals for the sake of also excluding the six diseased. For what, after all, does the imported disease mean ? It means, no doubt, a risk of considerable loss to breeders and farmers. But the exclu- sion of the 29,994 sound animals means the certainty of very heavy loss indeed to the people, nor is there the least security that under Mr. Chaplin's restrictions the health of English cattle in general would be much better than before. Though a new chance of foreign disease would be shut out, disease originating in this country could not be shut out ; and, as every one knows, epidemics very often strike only those who would have been struck down by some other illness, even if they bad not been caught by the epidemic. In numberless instances, epidemic outbreaks have appeared to absorb the normal diseases prevalent in the place where the outbreak occurs, so that doctors have assured us that the actual quantity of disease has not been so much increased, as transformed from a variety of different types into the single type of the prevalent epidemic. If this be so, we may very well, by preventing the importation of foot-and-mouth disease, succeed only in altering the particular character of the malady by which our cattle are affected, and not succeed in keeping them healthier, or at least healthier to anything like the extent represented by the number of cases affected by the epidemic. But in any case, the price paid must be the same. We must forego the advantage of all the non-diseased cattle imported, for the sake of excluding the few cases of disease. Is this what the English people wish ? We do not believe it. And however much the farmers may protest that they have no desire to return to a Protective system—and we do not doubt that, so far as they know themselves, they speak the truth—there is evidently a fascination to the breeder's mind in the prospect of that advance of the price of meat by 2d. or 3d. a pound, which, do what he may, he cannot prevent from more or less unconsciously influencing his judgment. What we have to consider is whether the people of England at large ought to
suffer severely for the benefit of a class. We believe that the Act- of 1878 was being administered on behalf of the people at large,
but that Mr. Chaplin's resolution is a resolution in the interest of a class ; and we should be glad, therefore, to see the Govern- ment invite the House to reconsider a decision so disastrous as the hasty vote of Tuesday night.
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