NORTHERN ADVOCATE DAILY With which is incorporated the NORTHERN MAIL DAILY. MONDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 1919. THE RAT NUISANCE.

Northern Advocate, 17 November 1919, Page 2

NORTHERN ADVOCATE DAILY With which is incorporated the NORTHERN MAIL DAILY.

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 1919. THE RAT NUISANCE.

Registered for transmission through the post as a newspaper.

It is a political axiom that the price of liberty is eternal vigilance. With equal force the aphorism can be used if the word "health" is substituted for "liberty." The principle indeed is capable of wide application, and seems to demonstrate that nature has decreed hard thinking and constant effort as essentials to the highest well-being. The ease of the almost universal rnt nuisance is a constant illustration of the important principle. It would seem as though nature is, through the abiding rat peril, laughing to scorn modern civilisation. Every now r and then the world is reminded of the waste running into millions of pounds sterling, and tho great mortality due to plagues spread by rats, and there %s a!temporary slight exertion made to deal with the evil. Health authorities occasionally manage to rouse the public* to the serious nature of the rat's alarming fecundity, but the interest created seems more sensational than reasoned, aud it soon dies away. Books have been written on the rat problem, and one such has as a frontispiece a picture of Sir James Crichton-Brow m e, M.D., LL.D., F.E.S., the president of the Incorporated Society for the Destruction of Vor- ' niin. To those who have given but scant attention to the evils of vermin in general, and rats in particular, an element of wonder is induced as to the extraordinary apathy of the people. The only rational explanation that can be assigned is that the mischief wrought by such creatures iB unrealised. So long as there is moderate freedom from disease and an entire absence of epidemics, then the apparently minor dangers to health ocieassioned by rats is disregarded. The harm accomplished by these pests to health is in the inverse degree of their preference for publicity. Like the malicious messengers of darkness that they are, rats make incessant war on civilisation, and they take indirect toll of millions of people annually. As to the economic loss as a result of the rat's persistency, it is so vast as to elude statistics; but only a little reflection is necessary to convince the inquirer that' it must be enormous. The secretary of a famous soap factory estimates the loss annually, at the lowest computation, at £500. A seed-farm manager puts the figure of his yearly loss at £1000. And almost every householder can add his quota to the unusual testimony against the übiquitous rat. An article on the rat scourge appears elsewhere in this issue, and it suggests measures of prevention. The ruthless destruction of the rat's natural enemies, the owl, the weasel, and kestrel, has operated greatly in favour of tho rodent. One thing is perfectly clear, and that is that a war on rats is sound policy alike in the interests of economics and health. Dr. Mercer, in a letter to the Whangarei Borough Council last July, draws attention to the rat peril, and quotes an authority that indicated a loss in the United Kingdom of ten millions annually. He remarked that a haphazard killing of a few dozen or a few hundred is of no permanent benefit. A comprehensive plan is suggested, carrying the war on rats into particular town blocks in order, appointing a special inspector or organiser for the purpose. The three methods of destroying rats aro by poisoning, trapping, or by ferrets and dogs. It is understood that tho Borough Council's inspector has a supply of rat poison on hand and that a campaign or destruction is mooted in the interests of public health. The poison to be utilised is similar to that used by the Auckland Harbour Board. A high sense of citizenship suggests personal and collective vigour to effect a radical clean-up; and we would bespeak such co-operation.