MILLIONS OF HORSES

Greymouth Evening Star, 15 February 1930, Page 4

MILLIONS OF HORSES

STILL AT WORK FOR MAN . One so frequently hears of the triumph of the motor over the horse that some figures published by the National Horse Association, Britain, are qquite startling. The society states that there are more than 30,000,000 of these animals at work for humanity. A century and a-quarter ago, Australia had only four grown horses and a colt; to-day the,continent has over two and a-quarter millions. Great Britain, the reservoir from which all lands have drawn their finest light and heavy breeds for three centuries, has over 1,000,000 horses in agriculture alone. She will have more, for horses are returning to fields which had been given over to motor-tractors. France has recovered from the frightful wastage occasioned by the war, and has now 3,000,000 horses on her roads and farms. More money has been spent in. America than in any other land on motors and other machinery, yet there are 20,000,000 • horses and- mules at work there. Germany has nearly 4,000,000. Horses swarm in Russia. They are countless in Mongolia and in the wilds of Asia, where nomad tribes still wander with their flocks and horses, drinking the milk of mares, eating horseflesh, and bartering so many horses for a. bride. If there could be anything like a complete census one would probably find the number of horses in human service not far short of 100,000,000. The figures available embrace for the most part only those devoted to agriculture The problem of the horse is not yet settled for the cities. Everyone is saying that the horse must be banned ' from the busy streets, where even a ' slow motor-lorry causes immense loss ' of money through holding up fast traf- ‘ fic. When one sees a line of cars and buses held up because a one-horsed van cannot get along, it is realised that horses are out of place in city traffic to-day. * Tn spite of that, however, says an English writer, great firms which have experimented for years with 1

i- motor traction for short distances go r back to the horse which is found more economical for all but long, unbroken journeys. The horses’ numbers still j grow in the cities and the great towns, j and, as these figures for half the world [• reveal, the number of horses must r even now be greater than all the ’ motor-cars in the world. It is evi- , dent, therefore, that the horse’s day is far from ended,