not necessarily self-advertisement : admirer though I am of the
radio technique of Dr. Charlie "ill, I hardly think that seeing him on TV would send me stampeding to get on to his panel. ,aIT IS SATISFACTORY that the Government has at 1,.vst been prodded into action over the export of e e.cattle. In view of the disclosures of The Pro- t:0n of Livestock for Slaughter Association, some change in the regulations would have been I evitahle, but apparently a working party of the experts set up by the Council of the Western European Union had already made its recom- mendations, and these are to be accepted. The Uns-u av,„ ci_ rY nature of the trade was shown quite ,varly by t
Burl he rep
eighort of the committee under Lord
tottle set up some time ago by the Government Ca
ok into the matter. The difficulties of watering in transit are notoriously great and con- tinental railway and slaughtering arrangements are sometimes appallingly inadequate. Some hor- rifying tales of overcrowding and misery have also been unearthed by the RSPCA. The committee very sensibly recommended that various condi- tions should be imposed on continental buyers —in particular that lengthy railway journeys, which may at present take re-exported cattle as far afield as Italy, should be avoided by selling only to small countries and insisting that cattle should not be resold outside them. These recom- mendations the Government rejected, having an eye, no doubt, on the five-odd million pounds a year involved. Vague promises to 'consult with the countries concerned about mitigating the con- ditions' have a suspiciously temporising ring about them and in so far as it has been able to extract something more positive from the Minister the Society deserves encouragement. I cannot see, though, that its case for the entire abolition of the trade is very strong. The remark of its pamphlet that 'cruelty and suffering is inevitable in foreign lands' is the heart of its case but that can hardly be taken seriously; and, considering that the trade sprang up in the first place because the US Army would not accept meat slaughtered in the conditions prevailing in British slaughter-houses, it has a hollow ring about it.
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