THE TALE OF A PIG.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LV, Issue 255, 25 September 1935, Page 11

THE TALE OF A PIG.

LONG JOURNEY AND SHORT QUARANTINE.

For months there have been negotiations between the Government of tho United Kingdom and the Government of the Commonwealth of Australia on the subject of meat imports into this country, says the London Times of August 8. They concerned beef, mutton, and lamb; and pork did not enter into the calculations. It was a surprise, therefore, to find on the Order Paper of the House of Commons the following notice:— Disease of Animals Acts—Copy presented—of Order dated July 26, 1935. authorising the landing at the Port of London from Australia of one pig and prescribing regulations in relation thereto (Order No. 5351) (by Act); to lie upon the Table. Happily it is the Order, and not the pig, which is to lie upon the Table. Members who have made inquiries into the subject have discovered that this is no ordinary pig. It is a little pig, but it is a. clever pig—so clover, in fact, that it has been able to emulate Mr Disney’s Big Bad AVolf. It has “huffed” and it has “puffed,” and it has blown the Alinistry of Agriculture down.

The owner of tho pig believes that it has a great future. Two months ago he decided to ask permission to bring it home from Australia in order to show tlie Afother Country how well a pig can behave after it has been properly trained. Correspondence followed between Whitehall and Canberra, but it is said that the owner could wait no longer. At any rate, the pig arrived in the Port of London, and its owner pleaded that his own welfare and the welfare of the pig were hopelessly intertwined. In view of the long journey which the pig had already taken, the Ministry of Agriculture decided that a fortnight’s quarantine would he sufficient. The period of enforced seclusion will soon bo at an end ; then the pig from Australia will be free to tell its companions in England of the great life in the wide open spaces, and its owner will be able proudly to exhibit to the public the pig concerning whose existence an Order was once laid- on the Table of the House of Commons.