EXPORT OF HORSES FOR BUTCHERY. (To THE EDITOR or THE
" SPECFATOR.") SIR.—The Minister of Agriculture has stated in the House of Commons, in reply to the demand for a .820 tax to end the trade in horses for slaughter abroad, that the Ministry has no power to impose an export tax and that it is not regarded as consistent with public policy to prescribe licence fees far in excess of the cost of examination. Many no doubt will recognize the Ministerial camouflage for what it is worth, but others may not be aware that the Ministry is condemning the policy it pursues, for it was also stated in the House by Sir R. Sanders (see Hansard of March 17th) that the total cost of the inspectors employed during 1920 was .84,006, and the total amount received in fees was £14,594, therefore the Government made a profit of .810,588 from this source. The facts are simple. As a nation, through our Government, we are conniving at a barbarously cruel trade. The majority of us are agreed that such cruelty should be stopped and the Government exists to carry out the will of the nation, there- fore no efforts should be relaxed until justice is done and thousands of our old horses are saved from the horrible fate that now awaits them in the shambles of the Continent, and numbers of worn-out pit ponies from the crowning horror of unfettered vivisection. The same kind of excuses have served to block every humane reform that has ever been demanded, but we stopped the slave trade, with its floating hells of cruelty, and there were much bigger financial interests concerned then. Why should we be stayed in our efforts to right a cruel wrong by the bogy of trade interests raised by dealers who have shown themselves brutal and callous in their methods beyond any class in the community?—I am, Sir, &c.. E. WARD. The Red House, Beaminstcr, West Dorset.
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