THE DUKE OF RICHMOND AS A FARMER.
IT is evident that the quarrel between the Tenant-Farmers and the Government, revealed by the resignation of Mr. Clare Read, is much more serious than was supposed. The Farmers, it is said, intend to get up a memorial for Mr. Read, as a kind of concrete vote of censure on the Government ; and the Duke of Richmond, in his speech to the Sussex and Chi- chester Cattle Club on Wednesday, a long and technical speech, was comically apologetic, and indeed announced that the Government never intended to pursue the policy which had offended Norfolk. So anxious was the Duke, that he took trouble to show he had a personal interest in the matter. He first conciliated his audience by declaring that he himself—he, the Duke of Richmond, and President of the Council—was a British Farmer. Not care about the spread of disease? Why, in July last year he had 2,997 sheep "which were either down or had been down " with foot-and-mouth disease ! He had 59 Alderney cows ill, 22 of them milch-cows, and " 80 pigs affected with the complaint." Clearly, therefore, he could claim personal knowledge of the subject, and personal interest in it. The interest is undeniable, and if the personal know- ledge is possessed rather by his Grace's bailiff than by his Grace himself, the farmers overlooked that, in gleeful admira- tion of the stroke about the pigs. A Duke who kept 80 pigs, or even more, forhehad 80 sick swine in his styes at once, was clearly a Duke to be trusted as President in Council. His Grace, how- ever, was still unsatisfied, and clinched his hold over the farmers by a further statement. When he came into power, succeeding, he says, " one of the best men of business in the Cabinet "—Mr. Forster—he found that when a beast was slaughtered to prevent pleuro-pneumonia, its owner received only £20 in compensation for his loss. He immediately decreed that the £20 should be £30, and it is £30 now. After that, could any human being doubt his devotion to the land ? The farmers were contented, and cheered the Duke to the echo as he proceeded to urge that besides his care about pleuro-pneu- monia, he was a perfect President as regarded foot-and-mouth disease, for he had appointed many more Inspectors to report on its spread. "Last year I had but one travelling-inspector, but thinking if one man had done so much good, how much more would be accomplished by quadrupling the force at my dis- posal, I obtained the sanction of the Chancellor of the Ex- chequer to what I deemed absolutely necessary, and he allowed me the necessary amount for four more. I have already appointed two gentlemen of social position, and I am about to appoint two more, and when I tell you that some of these gentle- men are distinguished ofwers in the Army, I think you will agree with me in saying that I am doing my best towards carrying out a proper and safe inspection." We are not doing the noble Duke any injustice. He really did -utter that almost incredible piece of silliness, which we have cut from a nearly verbatim report of his speech, three columns long, in the Tory Standard. The farmers were in ecstasies. Here was a President in Council and a Duke who had eighty sick pigs, who had given every farmer a needless £10 note—needless, for the previous Government did not give it—as a bonus on each beast slaughtered ; and who actually appointed Colonels and Majors to look after diseased sheep and cattle and swine, thus clearly honouring the land. What could he do more, unless, indeed, he appointed Bishops or Countesses to be Inspectors ? Who could dis- trust the Ministry after that ? Thus fortified, the Duke ap- proached the main topic of his speech. Not a fortnight ago he had allowed Mr. Clare Read to resign rather than extend the provisions of the Act ordering the slaughter of cattle afflicted with pleuro-pneumonia to Ireland—at least Mr. Read says so—and now he explains that it was all a mistake. He always wanted to extend the Act to Ire- land. The only reason he had not extended it was that there were no "local authorities" in Ireland, nobody whom he could trust to warn him if compensation were demanded for the slaughter of " miserable old cows," instead of diseased
beasts. That was most difficult and perplexing, but he was equal to the occasion ; he had written to the Lord-Lieutenant, and as soon as a plan had been matured,' the matter would be dealt with." Some more Colonels and Majors dolibtless will be appointed Inspectors, and in virtue of their" social position" will distinguish accurately between "miserable old cows" and cows with pleuro-pneumonia, and will give compensation properly, and will take the words out of the mouth of Mr. C. S. Read, who only a fortnight ago resigned because he could not see the internal working of the mind of a Duke who had 80 pigs sick all at once.
The Duke of Richmond, though not quite the statesman some of his friends think him, is a sensible politician enough, and he never would have made a speech of this kind, even at a Cattle Club, and still less had it reported in such detail, if he had not been aware that the secession of Mr. Read was a serious blow, that the farmers were very angry, and that the Government must really give them a little more help in getting profits on their trade. That is the whole
meaning of the speech. The Duke admits that foot- and-mouth disease is a mere ailment,—that is, a mere deduction from the farmers' profits incidental to the chances of business, but he appointed military inspectors because, knowing men, he knows that however little qualified they may be, their appointment will look like real care about the matter. He suspects that the agitation about pleura- pneumonia is unreal, for if it had been real, and the herds of the United Kingdom in serious danger, he would have acted at once, as he did in regard to rinderpest, and have found "local authorities" in Ireland, or substitutes for local authorities, fast enough ; but it is necessary not to alienate supporters, and so the Act is to be extended to Ireland. We do not object, for we have not the veterinary knowledge, but merely recount the incident as evidence of the steady and consistent and altogether-superior-to-Liberal way in which the Departments are at present managed. While the Tenant-farmers' friend is a Minister, pleuro-pneumonic cows, if they are also Irish, need no killing. When he retires, how- ever, they must be killed,--sacrifices, not to science, but to aroused agricultural suspicion of the honesty of the Tory assertion that their party is the " friend of the land." It remains only to be seen what the Tory Members for boroughs will say to it all. They do not keep pigs, and their constituents love cheap pork.
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