In a letter on the subject of the Government Cattle
Bill to last Saturday's Times, Mr. James Caird puts with unanswerable force the extraordinary capriciousness of its provisions. Cows and lean stock, after a short quarantine, will be allowed to go into the country, and there, if they have the seeds of disease in them, to spread it far and wide ; while fat animals destined for slaughter are not to be allowed, even under the most rigid limitations (unless they come from Canada or the United States) to be transferred even from the port of debarka- tion to another market of animals intended only for slaughter. In other words, the stringency as against the lesser danger is far greater than the stringency against the greater. And yet the loss on the dead-meat import is so great, that it pays American importers better to send live stock intended for slaughter at £3 a head more, than to send the dead meat at the lesser price. As far as we can see, the Government Bill is capricious by preference, and stringent without strength.
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