THE STOCK BILL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 8961, 19 August 1892, Page 5

THE STOCK BILL.

[BY TELEGRAPH. —SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.] Wellington, Thursday. I had an interview to-day with Mr. Lawry, chairman of the Stock Committee, relative to the Stock Bill, and was informed that there is strong opposition to clauses 48 and 50. Mr. Lawry has sen*; copies of the Bill to a large number of Agricultural and Pastoral Associations, also to a number of stock-owners in various parts of the North Island. The only replies received are from the Auckland Provincial Agricultural Association, and one prominent Auckland settlor. The reply from the lissociation comes in the form of a resolution from the executive committee strongly con demning the taxing clause, which proposes a tax of two pence per head on cattle. The driving clause is also condemned by the Executive as totally hostile to the interest of flockowners in the Auckland district. The Auckland members as a body will oppose the clauses. When I asked Mr. Lawry what the effect of the driving clause, if passed, would be in the Northern province, he said that a man would not be able to take cattle or sheep out of a railway truck and drive them across a road to a paddock during the prescribed hours,neither could butchers or others take sheep from the saleyards, and that the clause would be especially objectionable as preventing the driving of sheep on moonlight nights in the heat of summer, This clause, it is stated, has been introduced to prevent sheep-stealing, which prevails.in the South. While, therefore, the Auckland members have no desire to obstruct the objects of the Southern men in tins matter, the clause, Mr. Lawry thinks, should be a permissive one, that is, it should be brought into operation only when a majority of the stock-owners in a given district petition the Governor to enact it by an Order-in-Counoil. The Southern men will agree to its being permissive, if those who do not want it petition against it, but Mr. Lawry and the majority of the Auckland members believe that the onus of petition should lie with those who want it, and that those who do not should be saved the trouble and cost of petitions. The Stock Committee met to-day, but had no time to consider the Bill. lam informed that an additional clause was brought before the committee, which makes it obligatory for a stock owner to brand his cattle in tar with his registered brand before driving them in a public place. If this becomes law a man will not be able to drive his cattle across a public road to get from one paddock to another without first' branding stock. An effort is to be made to have the consideration of the Bill postponed until the stock owners in the northern part of the colony have an opportunity of expressing an; opinion upon the matter.