EXPORT OF WORK-WORN -HORSES [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
Sia,—Mrs. M. K. Matthew, the lion. secretary of the National Equine Defence League, writes to you, under the above heading, that, through the misguided action of ' humane ' societies, 'the Act of 1910 for the first time placed on the Ministry (of Agriculture) the responsibility for the veterinary examination of horses presented for shipment.' In other words, an export trade comprising work-worn, diseased, and naturally defective horses was made legal [my italics] in 1910, and placed in the hands of a Government Department that holds a strictly commercial outlook, strongly desires its continuance, and controls every facility for it ! "
What are the facts ? Before the Act of 1910 there was no compulsory inspection at all of exported horses, the result being that old, worn-out, and diseased horses were shipped for export abroad without let or hindrance. Those who can remember that time need not be reminded of the terrible sufferings to which these poor old horses were thus exposed, or of the scenes of unspeakable misery and cruelty which were witnessed when such of them as had not succumbed to a rough Channel passage were disembarked in Holland or some other foreign country.
Many a time did I pay a visit to the office of the Board of Agriculture, in company with the secretary of the R.S.P.C.A., to urge upon the authorities of that office the necessity of appointing Government inspectors in order to put a check upon a traffic which had become a disgrace to this country by preventing the export of horses which were not "fit to be conveyed and disembarked without cruelty," or "capable of being worked without suffering." But we were always met with the official non possumus." As usual, it was the question of expense that stood in the way. And so it came about that a Government Department which, according to Mrs. Matthew, for " commercial " reasons strongly desires the continuance of the present system of inspection, would have none of it in the years preceding 1910!
At last, however, the horrible results of allowing our old and worn-out servants to be sent abroad -without inspection or veterinary examination became such a scandal that the Press, and more especially the Daily Mail, took the matter up, and raised a cry of protest and indignation which made itself heard through the length and breadth of this country. At that time I happened to be a Member of Parliament, and, still acting on behalf of the R.S.P.C.A., I took occasion by the hand and presented a Bill to the House of Commons under what is known as the Ten-minutes Rule, whereby I was enabled to make a statement of the case for what the secretary of the Equine Defence League stigmatizes as "misguided action"! Happily, however, the House of Commons did not take that view, but, it is no exaggeration to say, gave me leave by acclamation to bring in the Bill, which, having passed all its stages without opposition, subsequently became the Diseases of Animals Act, 1910—a stupid title, for which, however, I was not responsible. Neither was I responsible for the omission in that Act of the words," and capable of being worked without suffering," which were unhappily deleted in the Upper House, and had to wait some four years before being restored by the amending Act of 1914.
The fact, therefore, remains that it is the R.S.P.C.A., acting through my humble agency, which can claim the credit, or, as Mrs. Matthew would say, was guilty of "the misguided action," of obtaining an Act of Parliament under the provisions of• which no horse—with certain necessary exceptions—can be exported without having been examined by a veterinary inspector, and certified in writing by him to be capable of
being conveyed and disembarked without cruelty, and (under the amending Act) "to be worked without suffering."
It is true that the results of these Acts, although they have done far more good than they have usually had the credit for, unfortunately fell short of our hopes and expectations, but I venture to think that, if the inspectors had taken a stricter view of the duties which they were appointed to perform, they had quite sufficient power to put an end to all the worst evils of the horse-traffic. On the other hand, how any reasonable being can imagine, as Mrs. Matthew appears to imagine, that things would have gone better with that traffic if there had been no inspectors at all, fairly passes my comprehension.
As to the present state of things, I will only say that if horse-flesh must be exported from this country for the purpose of being used for human food, it ought, of course, to be exported in the form of the carcase and not of the living horse. —I am, Sir, &c.,
[We cordially agree with Sir George Greenwood. We arc entirely adverse to the export of live horses for slaughter. We think they should be humanely slaughtered in Great Britain and the carcases exported. This correspondence must now close.—En. Spectator.]
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