WORN-OUT HORSES.

Northern Advocate, 9 January 1926, Page 6

WORN-OUT HORSES.

CONTINENTAL CRUELTY. SHIPMENTS FROM ENGLAND. WHITEWASHING CALLED. To the New Zealander horseflesh does not suggest a delicacy. Many people will no doubt associate it with beleaguered garrisons or others in an extremity of want. Yet Dobbin regularly provides an appetising dish to many thousands of people on the Continent. Very little mutton is eaten there, and if it is properly dressed and cooked a choice cut of a horse not only supplies, an insistent demand for meat, but it is regarded as a first-rate dish. Britain caters for the appetite of the horseflesh eater, and in 1924 she sent between 80,000 and 90,000 horses across the channel, either to France, Belgium or Holland. Not all were for consumption. Some were to meet the requirements of certain classes of Belgian or Dutch tradesmen needing some form of cheap horse labour. But the vast majority ended in joints for dinner or sausages for breakfast. Tliis trade has for many years been carefully watched by the Society for the Prevention 'of Cruelty to animals and the National Equine Defence League, not because they object to a horse diet, but by reason of the revolting stories told from time to time by their officials and other lovers of animals about the condition of the horses shipped over the water, the conditions of travel, the treatment of the animals on landing and the ghastly manner in which they are put to death. They have learned, for instance, that many of the horses exported had been “cast” for defects, injuries pr ailments; that some walk on three legs; that some had wounds and swellings which required either expert veterinary treatment or a bullet. They have learned of terrible scenes during the voyage across the churnedup Channel. In one dreadful instance following a gale, 110 horses reached Antwerp in a ghastly heap of dead and dying. They have confirmed stories of suffering through hunger and thirst during the voyage and following debarkation. Hay is provided for the horses on the steamers in which they travel, but they are peculiarly subject to a strange form of seasickness, and consequently cannot eat.

There are grim stories of processions of horses passing on to their doom, beasts old and infirm after years of faithful service, roped together three abreast, some walking skeletons, sojne lame, and many blind pit ponies. There were, too, tales of horses packed like sardines in uncovered trucks, of dreadful injuries caused when the maddened animals kicked and struggled for freedom. Many of the stories are of sheer horrors, particularly those told by Press correspondents and, others wjio, disguised as shabby idlers, wandered at will around the slaughter-houses, knowing, that if they went as well-dressed visitors their designs would be suspected and their movements restricted. Committee’s Report.

All these stories and complaints and charges led to the appointment of a committee of the Agricultural Department to decide whether or not the traffic was as cruel and callous and wicked as it was represented. The public, having infinite faith in the R.S.P.C.A. and kindred bodies, never doubted for a moment but that their investigations and allegations would materially influence the committee in its findings. But the contrary was the case. - The report of the committee just issued represents an extraordinary attack on the humanitarian societies. The committee is satifled that no decrepit horses have been passed for export since the reorganisation of arrangements in 1921; that the campaign of humanitarian bodies had been based largely on a state of things which had ceased to exist; that the horses were properly fed aboard ship; that it was absolutely untrue that blind and shattered pit. horses, ex-Army horses, and horses too painfully diseased to be seen in England 'were concerned in the traffic, and so on.

This was bad enough. Worse, however, was to follow. la 1014 tire T’.S.P.C.A. 'arranged for ■ a film to be taken in Belgium to show that horses were killed with the knife without previous stunning. The conrmittce’s report on this film announced the receipt of affidavits from the slaughtermen swearing that they were- specially engaged and paid to kill the horses for the film. “We are satisfied,” said the committee, “that the slaughterers were paid as they said, and we cannot accept it as any indication of the general practice in Belgium at the time. The method normally employed in Belgium in 1914 Ao slaughter a horse was stunning with a pole-axe or hammer and then bleeding. The criticisms of the report are even more severe than the strictures con-„ tabled in the report. A special representative of the “Daily Mews” who had curried out exhaustive investigations for his paper described it as “an astounding piece of white-washing.” He reminds the committee that they were told of horses breaking their ropes in an effort to roach food, of horses flogged, of horses struck with a hammer, and struggling to rise again, and of injured horses dragged behind closed doors so that Miss Cole and others might not see what happened. “The almost unbelievable conclusion of the committee,” he said, “is evidently based on visits some members and Ministry officials paid to the abattoirs. Such visits were worse than useless. The presence of well-dressed strangers prying about makes an inspection as futile as if the inquiries were made on the telephone. This industry claims, and is to be granted, the shameful privilege of basing itself upon cruelty. The objection to this traffic is one which the committee has failed fo grasp. It is that English horses, after years of faithful service, are seized upon by the dealers, worked until they are broken, wounded, and exhausted, then driven and beaten, and, finally, slaughtered, often under unspeakable conditions of cruelty. All the white-wash in the world cannot hide these black facts.” The R.S.P.C.A., both in England and in Belgium, indignantly deny that the film was faked, and the secretary of the Belgian society, M. Buhl, declares that even to-day cattle are killed with knives without previously being rendered insensible. The film was taken eleven years ago. If it was faked, why wasn’t the charge brought against them long before? Despite the committee’s report, therefore, there is a strong feeling in many quarters that the question has not been satisfactorily answered. “Truth” outspokenly states that it looks as if the committee, in an effort to while-wash one scandal, has another. ■ j.J