LOCUST PLAGUE

Hokitika Guardian, 13 November 1934, Page 5

LOCUST PLAGUE

TWO MEN SAVE COUNTRY

LONDON, November 10,

How a British officer saved Egypt from another plague of locusts was revealed in the House of Lords, where the International Locust Conference is sitting. The 1 conference is seeking; ways and means to combat the dead--Rest menace to which agriculture is exposed, both within the British Empire and outside. ■ . " The last locust plague was in 193 U This is what happened: Major Jervis Hey, employed by King Fuad as - Governor of the Sinai Desert, awoke one morning to find the familiar 'golden desert landscape black with young locusts. In a few days the “lioppers” would develop wings—and all Egypt’s .vast, rich fields of cotton,. rice and fruits would be destroyed, and fourteen million peasants facing starvation: Jervis telegraphed to Cairo. The reply was to send another Briton, Edward Ballard Bey, of the Ministry of Agriculture. Together they mobilised every available n'ative for miles 'around. Deep trenches were, dug and telegrams were sent to Cairo for thousands of gallons of petrol. The British military authorities were asked to improvise flame-throwers. For-ty-eight hours before the “'hoppers” would have become a winged plague, the “munitions” arrived. Thousands (of locusts returned to the main invading army to give it warning of the intentions of irfan. They changed their course. Fresh trenches had to be feverishly dug in a new. direction. The > flame-throwers did the rest. Millions of locusts tumbled into miles of trenches to be burned alive.