The Contagions Diseases (Animals) Bill,—in other words, the Bill for
compelling the slaughter of all fat animals imported from every European country—Canada and the United States are not to be included in the same prohibition—was moved in the House of Commons by Sir H. Selvrin Ibbetson on Monday night, in a speech which, while it dwelt chiefly on the mischief caused by the foot-and-mouth disease, hardly even attempted to make a case for the universal slaughter of all fat cattle introduced from Europe. Indeed, what Sir II. Selwiu Ibbetson said in favour of that course applied with at least equal strength to the importa- tion of the same class of animals from America, nor did he make any case for the exemption of the latter. Mr. Forster, in a very able speech, moved an amendment opposing this policy, and proving, first, that it must greatly raise the price of meat, and therefore do harm ; and next, that it would not offer any additional chance worth computing of stamping out foot-and-mouth disease,—a disease which is, very likely, not an imported one, and is certainly spread much more by cattle-fairs in this country than by properly regu- lated importation. As regards the food of the metropolis, the cattle brought from the Continent and sold in London were over. 40 per cent, of the whole. The proposed law would diminish the present import at least by one-quarter, and Mr. Forster believed that the country would lose by it the import of as much meat as would give a million of men three-quarters of a pound a day for two months in the year. This must vastly raise the price, while no compensation for so serious an evil could be shown to be at all probable.
