The Rinderpest.

Hastings Standard, Issue 216, 9 January 1897, Page 4

The Rinderpest.

There is little doubt that the rinderpest which has occasioned such enormous loss to South Africa during the past few months, presents a much greater danger than the bubonic plague to these colonies. No more fearful misfortune could befall Australasia than the introduction of this dread disease. In South Africa it has already ruined thousands, and the authorities are at their wits' end how to curb its ravages. Many people imagine it kills cattle only. But this is a mistake. Different animals have been attacked in different localities. Major Lugard declares that in East Africa the buffalo, eland, and giraffe suffered most. The common waterbuck, all hartbeasts and zebra were exempt. On the Botletle River it is said that the crocodile and hippopotamus, and even elephants, donkeys • and dogs are affected, and that the animals go mad before death and become very dangerous. Sir John Kirk thinks that the investigation which Dr Koch is about to make on behalf of the Government of Cape Colony may result in preventing the disease from being transmitted to England and Australasia by means of hides, &c., but that it is too late to save South Africa. A doctor in Cape Colony, writting to a friend in England, says riuderpest has already carried off ninety to ninety-five per cent of the oxen. " You must," he continues, '' remember that oxen have other uses here than being converted into beef. They are used for ploughing and for all heavy draught purposes ; in fact, for all the things that heavy cart-horse at Home are used for. Now, the loss of our oxen means that we shall have no means of ploughing, and consequently, no wheat, oats, or barley, and in places away from the railway line there will be no means of transporting provisions. All this would be bad enough, but should the disease get a footing in the colony, the Home markets will be closed to our wool and hides, and as these are the only exports we have, apart from gold and diamonds, it means ruin for all outside the mining centres, and for a | good many even there. And by ruin 1 mean the loss of every penny, and, in addition, the greatest difficulty in warding off starvation. In parts of Griqualand West, that I know well, the people are already petitioning the Government for the gratuitous distribution of food. Within the last two weeks the disease has spread rapidly through the Free State,and the farmers there are panic-stricken and are trying to force their way across the Orange River. Our guards, police mainly, are shooting their cattle down, and that may convince them that they have nothing to gain by trying to get iuto the colony." This picture is sufficiently alarming to awaken our own authorities to the importance of adopting tho most stringent measures for the exclusion of the disease. Its arrival here would be one of the greatest disasters that could occur to the pastoral industries of the colony.